


Ghosts of Britannia

by qqueenofhades



Series: Ancient Rome [2]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-10
Updated: 2015-08-28
Packaged: 2018-01-18 22:06:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 32,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1444558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/qqueenofhades/pseuds/qqueenofhades
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Historical AU. Sequel to "When in Rome." When Marius Henricus Maximinus, adopted son of a wealthy Roman plebeian, loses his parents in a fire, he sets out on a journey to find his real mother, Emma Aurelia - and crosses paths with a shadowy Celtic pirate captain with an equally mysterious past. Captain Swan and some Outlaw Queen, COMPLETE.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

For every one of his twelve years of life, Marius Henricus Maximinus had always known exactly who he was. The adored only son of Marius Victorus Maximinus and his wife Rubinia, scion of a noble plebeian family, who lived in a comfortable townhouse near the Forum and attended its business with his father daily, who had his own tutor to teach him Greek, logic, grammar, geometry, music, and other arts of the civilized man, and who was surely destined for a post as legionnaire commander or provincial prefect. Until he was ten, Henricus had been sponsored by Emma Julia Aurelia, the daughter of the _praetor urbani,_ but then her father had been made governor of far Britannia, and she had left Rome for good. Sometimes he missed her; she had taken a personal interest in him that went beyond the usual, and he had always thought of her as a favorite aunt or elder sister. Now in her place, Regina Sabina Milia saw to the maintenance of his interests instead, and Henricus was often reminded of what a fortunate lad he was, to have had _two_ such great women as his patronesses. With the world at his disposal and a future as bright as the midday sun on the sea, he had never had cause to question anything about his life, and greatly doubted that he ever would.

It was the ides of February, the celebration of Lupercalia, in the year of the consulship of Hadrianus and Caesar, when Henricus’ tidy existence fell to pieces.

\---------------

Choking and coughing, shivering under the cloak that one of the household slaves had wrapped around him, Henricus stared frantically into the maelstrom of hungry flames that danced and devoured the black skeleton of the house. The smoke stung his eyes and the cold mud squelched under his bare feet; he had been rushed out with no time to dress. But his father had then plunged back in to find his mother, and neither of them had yet emerged. There was no way to say how the inferno had started, but Lupercalia was customarily a time for wild street parties and masked youths in shaggy furs lashing women with whips to grant them fertility; an unattended festival fire, perhaps, or a drunken _Luperci_ supposing it would be fun, not knowing that the house was occupied. The tale of the she-wolf who suckled Romulus and Remus had always been a particular favorite of Rubinia Maximinia, but as she was a properly married woman, she no longer participated in the celebrations. All three of them had been asleep as the flames spread and burning embers rained down, and barely woken in time.

Henricus squinted through the haze. Shouts were spreading; neighbors were rushing in with buckets of water drawn up from the aqueducts, trying to put the blaze out before it could spread through the tightly packed _insulae_ of the central city; such a dreadful thing had happened in Nero’s time, he knew. But all he could think about was his parents, praying for them to appear. He wondered how long it had been, if it should have been so much. Of course Papa wouldn’t leave Mama behind. They’d be there – any moment now, he’d see them –

Henricus’ heart began to thunder in his ears. He clenched his fists, and had to be physically prevented from charging into the flames himself, a burly manservant grabbing him and dragging him back. Wanted to be a hero, wanted to save them all but couldn’t, his tears making white streaks in the mask of soot covering his face, as the sparks kept on fountaining ten, twenty, thirty feet high, and he finally understood that they were not coming, were never coming again.

The bodies of Marius Victorus and Rubinia were removed from the still-smoking rubble by the light of grey dawn. They were so scorched as to be nearly unrecognizable, and the servants attempted to prevent Henricus from seeing, but were not entirely successful. Shrouds were placed over them, and a cart brought to take them to the crematorium; the bodies of the dead were polluting and could not remain among the living. But as their only living relative had been their now-orphaned son, it was a matter of concern as to who would finance and perform the proper funerary rites. For that matter, the custody and care of Henricus himself was now under some contention. Who would take him in, finish his education, or otherwise supervise his adolescence and formation into a virtuous Roman citizen? Patrician boys were often adopted or supported as wards of the state by the emperor or other highly ranking noblemen, but the Maximinii, no matter how affluent and respected, were still plebeians. It would not be suitable.

After a hushed, worried conversation among the surviving household, only one option was reached. They had to take him to Regina.

\----------------

It was midmorning, though still as foggy and dim as daybreak, when the filthy, grief-stricken, stunned Henricus was driven up the hill in an ox-cart, to the elegant villa where his patroness made her residence. Regina Sabina Milia kept property, power, slaves, wealth, and clients in her own name, and was completely ruthless to any and all men who attempted to interfere, and after several painful lessons learned, they had decided enough was enough and left her well alone. She was a legend of a woman, still beautiful despite being almost fifty; there were rich silver streaks in her black hair, but her face remained smooth and unlined. It was whispered she used a salve made of gold dust, honey, asses’ milk, and the blood of virgins to achieve such a remarkable effect. Yet despite this fearsome reputation, she had always been cordial to Henricus, and once her gatekeepers had taken stock of his tragic estate, they hurried to see if she would receive him. Returning with the news that the lady had not yet risen, but had nonetheless consented to an audience, they wiped the worst of the soot off and escorted him into the inner sanctum.

Regina was sitting up in bed, with a bare-chested man asleep next to her. Like everything else about her, the identity of her lover was scandalous: Robin had been a slave brought to Rome as a prisoner of war almost fifteen years ago, but Regina had manumitted him – and, it was widely rumored, entered into a morganatic marriage with him the instant her son-in-law, David Aurelius, was out of the picture. If so, it was just one of the secrets that she kept. But seeing Henricus bedraggled and tearstained, she quickly pulled on a robe and stood up, crossing the floor to him. “You poor child. I heard what happened.”

All he felt capable of was to nod numbly, as Regina led him off into a more private antechamber and had her slaves fetch a late breakfast. Henricus was not at all hungry and could only nibble. But he gathered himself enough to stammer, “What – what is going to happen to me?”

Regina eyed him. She seemed to be debating whether or not to say something. “Don’t worry,” she said at last. “I’ll cover the funeral costs. Your parents will be sent decently to their rest.”

Henricus opened his mouth to thank her, but a sob came out instead, and he finally broke down, weeping while Regina placed a light hand on his shoulder and offered him a cloth to wipe his eyes. At last she said, “You’ll be wondering after your future, I suppose?”

Henricus hiccupped and nodded miserably.

“I’d be willing to adopt you as my own son and heir,” Regina told him. “I promised your mother that I’d look after you and. . . well, regardless of what I thought of her asinine foolery in the first place, an oath is an oath. And I plainly will have no children of my own.”

“What?” Henricus, momentarily distracted from his troubles, frowned. “My mother? What did you promise Rubinia?”

Regina opened and shut her mouth. She hesitated, which must have been a first. Then, slowly and carefully as if to be sure he understood, she said, “I didn’t promise _Rubinia_ anything.”

“But you said – ”

“Aye, I did.” Regina arched a plucked eyebrow.

“But. . .”

She said nothing. She waited.

Henricus felt as if the world, once more, was crumbling out from under him, going up in smoke. “Are you,” he stammered. “Are you saying that she. . . that she _wasn’t my mother?”_

“Clever lad.” Regina sat back in her chair. “This is no way to find it out, and you have my sympathy. But no. You were adopted at birth by Marius Victorus and his wife, who had never succeeded in having any children of their own, and who were the sort of people who could be trusted not to reveal your true identity. Your mother – your real mother – could not have kept you. Far too great a dishonor for such an honorable and upstanding family.” She snorted.

“But – ” Henricus gabbled for a third time. “But then – my – who – _who was she?”_

Regina considered him a moment longer, then picked up her wine cup and polished off the last of it. “Honestly,” she said. “Do you truly have no idea?”

For that final instant, everything was still a blur and nothing made sense. He wanted to shake her and demand that she stop speaking in a sphinx’s riddles, grappling with the overwhelming conviction that everyone in his life had lied to him and nobody could be trusted. And then, just as suddenly and horrifyingly, it hit.

“Mistress Aurelia,” he croaked. _“Emma?”_

Regina raised her empty goblet as if in toast. “Bravo.”

“But she. . . but she. . .” _She left me,_ Henricus wanted to say. _But I wasn’t supposed to know who she was._ Why not? What could be so horrible, so shameful, that it must be concealed and never even spoken of? Mistress Aurelia had never taken a husband after her betrothed had died in Gaul, so a highborn daughter bearing a child out of wedlock would be scandal enough – but still, hardly unprecedented. There must be more to it, and a second, rather understandable question occurred to him. “But then. . . who is my. . . my father?” The word stuck in his throat. It had always belonged to Marius Victorus.

Regina paused. “I don’t know. Emma never said.”

Henricus gripped the edge of the table. “I want to find out.”

“Don’t.”

“Why not?”

“You’re always much happier knowing something in theory, than you are in truth. It could only disappoint you.”

“But I want to!” Henricus cried. “Everyone lied to me. _Everyone._ I don’t want to stay here and take on another one. Is Emma still in Britannia? I want to go there, I want to ask, I need to – ”

“ _Henri_ ,” Regina interrupted. “It’s foolish. Utterly foolish. I’m not sending you all the way to Britannia to confront your birth mother, when she was the one who made the choice to give you up in the first place. She doesn’t want you as her son, do you understand? She made a mistake and she has to pay for the consequences. Stay here as _my_ son, however, and you’ll have everything you want. Londinium is much too far away and it’s much too dangerous to travel there, with the new uprisings of the Brigantes and the Caledonians. You’re not going.”

Henricus stared her down mulishly. “I want to.”

“You do not have my permission, and I am your patroness and now your legal guardian. It does not matter who sired you. If you are wise, you won’t breathe a word of any of this, accept the offer of my name and status and protection, and be grateful for it. Mark me and mark me well. If you start digging for old bones, you never know what ghosts you’ll awake instead.”

“But I – ”

“You are very young, and out of your head with grief and confusion and betrayal. Now is no time to make such decisions. When you’ve had a bath and bed, you’ll see it as I do.”

“I don’t – ” Henricus started to get to his feet.

Regina, looking past him, clapped her hands. “Guards.”

\--------------

For the next fortnight, that was how it was. Henricus had everything his heart could desire, his own room overlooking the city, every strange delicacy he had ever wanted to try, but the only time he was allowed out of the villa was for his parents’ (he could not think of them as anything but his parents, regardless) funeral at the cemetery outside the city walls. The rest of the time, someone was always watching him, no matter how unobtrusively, and he was utterly miserable. Even when he wept for his parents, for being lied to, for being left alone, Regina would always appear with more promises to mend it. But she couldn’t, she wasn’t _listening,_ and he was at his wit’s end as what to do.

Finally, he decided on escape. It was plain that she was never going to grant him leaving the house on her own accord, so he would have to outwit her. Slowly, carefully, he began hoarding food and supplies in a bag, which he hid under his bed. He’d have to scrape up money from somewhere. Work out how to get to Britannia. It was Roman territory all the way there, he could just follow the road, it couldn’t be all that difficult. Stow away on some merchant’s cart or attach himself to a legion. Heroes had brave adventures all the time, didn’t let the odds stand in their way. He’d have to do the same.

At last, a suitable evening arrived. Regina was entertaining some of her clients at an elaborate _cena,_ which would proceed very late into the night and involve much imbibing and conviviality. Once he was sure that they were all engaged, Henricus snuck away to his room and changed. A sturdy dark woolen toga and hooded mantle, leather sandals, good plain traveling clothes. Grabbed his bag from under the bed, slung it over his shoulder, and crept out through the colonnades into the dark garden. Laughter and light drifted from the hall, and he paused one final moment to look back at it. Then steeled himself, asked the protection of Mercury as god of travelers, and took a –

“Where are you going, boy?”

Henricus’ foot froze in midstep, and as he windmilled to keep his balance, nearly fell flat. He managed to avoid it, but spun around to see Robin, leaning against the low stone wall and watching him interestedly. Damnation, he should have remembered that Robin would not be attending the feast, that he might keep Regina company in bed and in private but never in public. He opened and shut his mouth in useless search of an excuse. “I – I was – ”

Robin eyed him with weary sympathy. “I know what you were doing. Trust me, lad, I do. She’s trying to keep you close, but she doesn’t yet know that if you have to use force to keep it prisoned, it doesn’t belong to you at all. How on earth did you think you were going to get away, though? And then do what? Walk to Britannia by yourself?”

“I – ”

Robin considered him for a long moment. Then, abruptly, he seemed to come to a decision. Gripped Henricus firmly by the shoulder and escorted him through the maze of the gardens, out through the postern gate and down to the marketplace, which was only now starting to disperse as men sought out the comforts of _taverna_ and brothel and hearth. There was still plenty of commerce, however, and Henricus stood tensely as Robin negotiated with someone in a low-voiced language he didn’t understand – it wasn’t Latin, that was for certain. Just as he was starting to wonder if Robin was turning him in for a profit, the older man motioned him over. “Get on.”

“What – ?”

“It’s a trading caravan,” Robin said tersely. “They can take you as far as northern Gaul, possibly to Londinium. Try not to be recognized. Go.”

“You’re helping me?” Henricus’ jaw sagged. “Why?”

Robin looked briefly as if he wanted to say something. Instead he reached for an iron ring on his smallest finger, twisted it off, and dropped it into the boy’s hand. It was tarnished and old, worked with intricate Celtic knots, and was too big for even Henricus’ thumb. He tucked it into his bag, then looked back at Robin again. “What’s this for?”

“My wife gave it to me. It may be useful where you’re going, it may not.”

“Regina?” Henricus was even more puzzled.

“No.” Robin hesitated. “Marian. Now hurry up, would you? _Go!”_

Henricus scrambled aboard the cart as indicated, still unable to quite believe his turn in fortune, half expecting that they would be stopped at the city gates and he would be hauled back to the villa in high dudgeon. But as the driver cracked the whip over the oxen’s back and they started to move, as it was true, as he was somehow leaving Rome after all, on his way to wild and uncharted lands, to a hero’s journey, to adventure, to (he much hoped) the truth, he could not help but look back at Robin and stammer out a final question. _“Why?”_

For a final instant, Henricus thought he would not answer. Then, as Robin was already fading into the night, his last words blew as a whisper on the wind.

“Because you look so very much like your father.”


	2. Chapter 2

She had been dreaming of him, for the first time in months. Had seen him close enough as if she could reach out her hand and touch him, and she squeezed her eyes shut, trying to hold onto every scrap of it that she could. He would be – what, twelve now, almost thirteen? He had been born in June, in the high heart of summer; she could still remember the way the sweat and heat and dampness clung to her skin as she struggled in her travail. Only the midwife, a slave, to hold her hand. How it had torn her in two to hear him crying as they carried him away, as she didn’t dare to look. _But at least he is happy._ He had his adoptive parents, he had Regina, he had all the privilege and future that Roman money could buy. Doubtless the woman who had patronized him was just a fading memory, once upon a time. _Henri._ She called him that only in the privacy of her own head, didn’t even still have the chance to speak it aloud. The hole in her heart clenched as tight as a fist. These night visions of him were both solace and torment.

No chance of getting back to sleep now. Emma sat upright and tossed the coverlets aside, padding across the room to strike a light in the lamp. By its uncertain glow, she pulled clothes out of her trunk and began to dress. Not the stola and palla of a proper Roman lady, but a tunic kirtled up into a belt, leggings, cross-gartered boots, and a cloak. Last of all she shouldered on her shortsword in its scabbard across her back, and – feeling far too old for this, she was a woman of thirty, not a child – glanced around to ensure that the coast was clear, that the rest of the household was still peacefully slumbering, before she slipped down the hall and outside.

The chill, misty predawn hit her like a slap in the face. Eboracum, the northernmost Roman settlement in Britannia, was a singularly desolate place to be at the best of times, but particularly so in March. There was nothing surrounding them but miles of empty moorland, harboring the numerous Brigante and Celtic rebels who had been causing enough of a nuisance for David Aurelius to move his center of operations here, almost sixty leagues north of his principal residence in Londinium. Hadrian’s Wall, the chief defense against the barbarians, must be reinforced before Emperor Antoninus could press ahead with his grand scheme to expand Roman power into Caledonia. David had sent word to Rome requesting more legions to assist in the process, but given the slow, cumbersome route of ox-carts and trading galleys the letter must travel (not to mention the gauntlet it would have to run in the imperial bureaucracy) receiving them, and starting the conquest, would not be feasible for another year at least. _So we wait._

Emma, however, was not sitting on her hands waiting for the slow wheel of political machinations to turn. Soon after their arrival, she had learned the story of Boudicca, the warrior queen of eighty years ago, who had burned and destroyed Camulodunum, Londinium, and Verulamium at the head of a hundred thousand Celts. Her rebels had single-handedly wiped out the Ninth Legion, caused Emperor Nero to consider withdrawing from the island altogether, and left Boudicca with the sort of fearsome reputation, her name still spoken in half-whispers as if saying it too loud might summon her back to life, that Emma had only ever known men to have. It was a power she admired, that she had respected about her step-grandmother back home. To strike back, to gain a voice in a world where women had none, by force if that was the only language to be understood. And so, she was teaching herself to fight.

Not that she planned to rebel against the Roman government. Her own father was the ruler of Britannia, after all. But she had calculated that it might be well worth it to learn how to handle a sword, and so she rose every morning to train. She had learned how to defend herself, how to attack and parry, how to feint and strike. But there was only so much she could teach herself without a sparring partner, and she had started to wonder who might be suitable to assist. One of the household slaves, one of the soldiers. Though it would be hard with most of them out hunting for the Brigantes.

Emma did a few quick stretches to limber up, then shrugged off her cloak and set to work. She had built a quintain for herself, even if fighting with the swinging wooden post made her feel faintly ridiculous when there were so many real enemies to be had. Both out there, and in her head. But decimating it with all her strength was a good release for her pent-up stress and rage, and today was no different. She hove to, grunting with exertion, her tangled blonde braid blowing back from her face. Slashed and hacked, turning the padded crossbar to ribbons, ducking adroitly when it swung overhead, stabbing, stabbing. Boudicca she might not be, but she was a far cry from the sheltered praetor’s daughter who had first come to Britannia, who had never held a weapon. Her hands were hard with callus, her sweat freezing on her brow in the low, dank fog. Lean and fast and strong. A fighter. The rare moment she could be free.

Emma had almost finished with her morning calisthenics when she noticed something odd. The postern gate that was normally kept closed and locked had, bewilderingly, been left ajar. She doubted it could be chalked up to carelessness, as the hair-raising tales told of the natives’ savagery had ensured everyone took twice the precautions to secure both the city and the villa against intrusion. Frowning, she wiped her forehead and strode across the courtyard, where with a moment of inspection she determined that the lock had been forced.

 _What the – ?_ She knew that the tribes had been getting bolder and bolder, but for that to extend to an attempt on the governor’s own villa bespoke a level of dedication or lunacy that was either way quite alarming. But if they’d succeeded in breaking in, why hadn’t they tried to slaughter the entire household? They were asleep, unarmed, easy prey. Unless it hadn’t been the rebels at all, but some careless individual coming back late to find himself locked out. . . yet then it would have been easier to get someone’s attention and have them let him in, not. . .

Either way, she wasn’t about to write it off as coincidence. Emma took a firmer grip on her sword, pushed the gate open, and stepped out onto the narrow, steep embankment path beyond. Eboracum was built on the three hills above the river bottom, at first a spare Roman military fortress that had eventually acquired all the accoutrements of civilized life: baths, a forum, a marketplace, aqueducts and comfortable residences, enclosed within stout walls. Emma liked it somewhat better than Londinium, just because it was easier for her to find time and place to be alone, not forced to endure the pretense of society. As far as she was concerned, learning how to swordfight and dressing in un-womanly fashion was furtherly beneficial in rendering her an undesirable matrimonial candidate. She would never marry or even get close to a man again.

Emma’s lips tightened as she picked up the pace. There were very definitely footprints in the mud here, and not the heavy boots of Roman soldiers: the lighter, fainter impressions of a fleet-footed individual in the lighter shoes of rebels. They veered off and into the thickly wooded banks by the river, and she ducked into the scrub, careful where she put her feet. Wet earth slid out from under her, but she could still see the deep imprints. They’d gone this way, then.

It occurred to Emma that this could be a trap, some exceptionally clever and daring rebel leaving an obvious trail in hopes of ensnaring someone important from the governor’s household to then hold for ransom. In which case, she was doing exactly what they wanted, but. . . she’d deal with that when and if she came to it. She wasn’t in a cautious mood.

Slinging her sword back over her shoulder so as to have full use of her hands, Emma picked her way across the slimy, mossy stones, then started to scale the ravine on the far side. She happened to know that this was one of the blind spots, one of the places the guards couldn’t see from the walls, which furthered her conviction that the rebels might know that as well. Anyone, such as her, climbing out of the draw was at a disadvantage, especially if an enemy had gained the high ground above. If someone _was_ there, this was the moment that they would choose to –

Emma caught it only in an instant, out of the corner of her eye. The bushes erupted, and a spectral figure rose up overhead, shadowing the dim light, to fling a spear at her. She ducked by pure instinct, hearing it clattering on the rocks below, and nearly lost her balance – if she had fallen as well, it was likely to a broken neck. Yet it spurred her to rage, not fear. There were a thousand good reasons not to go charging into the thicket of a rebel ambush by herself, but to hell with all of them. She got a better grip, vaulted over a tangle of gorse, and let out her best approximation of the wild Celtic war-whoop. With all that was lacking being the blue woad on her face, she swung over the top of the embankment and broke into a sprint.

Her attacker, who had clearly not expected her either to survive or to be quite so mad about it, began to run as well. He moved as if intimately accustomed to the landscape, as if he might disappear altogether in another moment. The only way to keep up with him was to go faster, and they were out in the hinterlands beyond the pale now, her feet splashing and skidding under her as they began to get bogged down in the moors. It crossed Emma’s mind to consider that if she died out here, they’d never find her body, but that was secondary. She put on a burst of speed, pulled even in a few more lengths, and, clawing out madly, managed to brush her fingers across the back of his collar. Got a better hold, swung him around, and slammed him down into the murk. Pressed her sword to his throat and snarled, in his own tongue, _“Don’t move!”_

It was harder to say which shocked him more: that a woman had just taken him down from behind, or that she spoke Brythonic. Emma was one of the few Romans who had bothered to learn the native language in any depth – just in case, she told herself. No reason. Certainly it was not for the benefit of miscreants such as this one, who looked about eighteen or nineteen. He had the thick black hair of a Celt and flat, shut-off dark eyes, clearly expecting the next blow she struck to be the death one. It was something she was, at the moment, very much considering. But something about that expression struck her, haunted her. _Lost boy._ She knew it too well.

Slowly, Emma eased up on the pressure of her blade, but kept him firmly pinned. “Name?”

He chewed his tongue. She half expected him to spit it out at her. But some grudging sense of honor must have compelled him to speak. “Roland.”

“That so?” Emma had no idea what to do. She already knew she couldn’t kill him, and if she brought him back as a prisoner to be interrogated – she _could,_ but that was something else to be considered later. For all she knew, his friends would materialize at any moment and make this all a moot point. If she fell into their hands. . . well, they’d fetch a good price at least, as her father would certainly pay for her safe return. But if they were wise, they’d use the governor’s daughter to far better advantage than that, and the ramifications would be considerable.

“So,” Emma said, trying to buy time. “What were you doing?”

One eyebrow rose, as if to say that he saw straight through this and had no intention of answering. But then, the flash of something around his neck caught her attention, and she fished it out with one hand. To her great surprise, it was a military emblem – and not just any. It was the insignia of the Sixth Legion, the “Victorious Sixth” that had crushed the last British revolt, raised Hadrian’s Wall, and tightened Roman control over the entire island. To say the least, it was a strange thing to find a young rebel wearing. “What’s this?”

Once again, he seemed on the verge of not answering, but finally did. “I wear it. To remind myself that Romans are all killers.”

Emma held his gaze a moment longer, keeping the sword in his face; he flinched, despite himself. Then she took it away. In a quiet, hard voice she said, “You’re wrong.”

“Am I?” Emboldened, Roland sat up, rubbing at the red spot she’d left. “The Romans murdered my mother and took my father away to be a slave! Now they’re back for more. None of you will be content until you take this too! You have an entire empire. Isn’t that enough?”

Emma didn’t answer. Something about him seemed faintly familiar, but she couldn’t say why or from where. Likewise, she couldn’t answer his charges. Not without telling him why she too bore such a deep hatred for the powerful men of Rome and what they had done to her. Why Boudicca had called to her so strongly, why she took such a secret, vindictive thrill wherever the legions were beaten back, no matter how much trouble and headache it caused for her father. She teetered on the verge of sharing, just because it was so long since she had spoken about any of it and she sometimes wondered if it had all been an old, terrible dream. Worse than her phantoms of Henricus, who was her only proof that any of it had ever happened. But one day, sooner or later, she would forget his face as well, and then it would be only shadows and ghosts.

Despite herself, something must have shown in her expression, because Roland looked vaguely confused. If he was surprised by her not immediately leaping to the Romans’ defense, he did not say so. As for her, it was strange and sad that she should feel more at ease in the company of this young outlaw, more as if he understood her, in these few moments, rather than the twelve years she had carried this burden alone. “I’m sorry,” she said at last, feeling as if she could not quite suck enough air into her lungs. “I know.”

Roland eyed her with intense curiosity. After a moment, he awkwardly cleared his throat. “Up at the villa,” he said. “I wasn’t raiding. I was just. . . I was just hungry.”

“Wouldn’t it have been easier to steal from the market?”

He shrugged. “Hungry _and_ looking for information.”

Emma’s mouth twisted in reluctant admiration of his bravery. “You weren’t very clean,” she informed him. “The latch was left broken. That’s how I followed you.”

Roland absorbed this revelation pensively. Then, carefully as if not to alarm her into further attacks, he got to his feet. “I’ll just – ?” He made an interrogatory motion. “Go?”

“Aye.” Emma got up as well, noting that her leggings and boots were covered in thick dark peat stains. It was going to be very hard to explain this away, especially if the villa was waking up and had discovered her absence. She hesitated, then as he started to move away, called after him. “I’m there in the courtyard before sunrise, every day. If you ever found yourself hungry again.”

Roland glanced back at her, furtherly startled. “I – I might,” he admitted. “Th – thank you.”

Emma inclined her head, watching him vanish like the ghost she had first thought him to be. She felt oddly and unspeakably bereft. Could barely even face the prospect of turning around and explaining herself to her worried parents, concocting some tale of why she had been out in the moorlands alone, early in the morning, dressed like a man. Felt the weight of time and grief pressing down on her, until it was all she could do not to get up and run after Roland then and there. Beg the tribe to take her in. But as the only explanation that would ever be entertained was that they had forcibly kidnapped the governor’s daughter to make barbaric use of her, it would bring down fire and sword and Roman wrath on them, a fate they did not deserve. Even if she had rarely been so close to snapping, breaking in half like badly tempered iron. _I can’t do this anymore._ Nothing to look forward to but more long days and empty nights. More weeks and months and years without her son, who did not and would never know that that was who he was. She could get up and walk into the mist as well. Walk and walk and never return.

She was close. Very close. But instead she dragged a shaking hand through her hair and tiredly began to walk. In the direction of Eboracum, not the moors. Because if there was one thing this ordeal had taught her, it was that she was, for better or worse, a fighter. Would not lie down and go to sleep and let the water close over her head. Had to keep living, keep breathing. No matter the scars. No matter the darkness. No matter the memories.

No matter.

\----------------

Marius Henricus Maximinus had now been on the road for a month and a half, and he had never been so heartily sick of anything in his life. Bumping over every gods-forsaken rut, delayed in this or that little insignificant outpost of a town while the traders haggled for a better price, and every moment chasing the question in his head that had obsessed him since their departure from Rome. _How did Robin know my father? My real father?_ Was that something else they had all lied about? Regina had said that she did not know, that Emma had never said, but then how could Robin – ? Clearly he had not only known this mysterious man, but known him well enough and held him in such high esteem as to do this favor for his son, no questions asked, however many years later. And as much as Henricus sought for another explanation, as much as he wanted there to be one, the only one that kept occurring to him was that his father had been a slave.

It made too much sense. Why his birth had been such a scandal, why he had to be hurried off and adopted without a word breathed of his true origins, why his mother – his birth mother, for Rubinia’s face was still the one he saw when he thought the word – could never acknowledge or treat him as such. Must have been someone Robin knew, possibly who had come from Britannia with him, and very likely now dead. Henricus wasn’t sure how he felt about that. Regina was right. Part of him wanted to know, and part of him wished bitterly that he didn’t.

At least the journey had not been without its interests. Crossing the Alps made him think of Hannibal with his elephants, and the stunning beauty of Gaul and Aquitania had made him realize how little he had seen of the world, growing up sheltered and coddled behind Rome’s high walls. Even if he no longer had the faintest idea what he would say to Emma Aurelia when he turned up on her doorstep in Londinium, other than to cause her a horrible shock. _Hello, I’m Henricus, but you can call me Henri. I’m your son._ As if she didn’t know. It sounded stupider in his head every time he rehearsed it. Sometimes Henricus just wanted to pitch himself straight off the cart and bury himself in a hole, but that was no use at all.

They had left Rome in early March, and it was now almost May. The weather was getting better every day, although Henricus had been assured that no matter what it would be terrible when they got to Britannia, and they were nearly to Gesoriacum, the main Roman port on the Gaulish coast. A detachment of the imperial navy was based there, it was the site of frequent ferry crossings to Britannia, and the prospect of actually getting to where it felt he had been going for a lifetime had Henricus’ head all in a fluster. Especially when the wagons finally rolled in, and he could squint and see a faint line on the horizon that must be Britannia, only ten leagues across the water – Portus Dubris, the main center of commerce, and its towering white cliffs. From there, Watling Street led straight to Londinium. He’d done it. Made it all the way, and not been dragged back to Rome by his hair to face Regina’s displeasure. It almost turned him giddy.

It was in Gesoriacum, however, that Henricus learned two pieces of news to his disquiet. The first was that the provincial governor, David Aurelius – his grandfather, he realized – was not presently in residence in Londinium. Instead he was in Eboracum, almost two hundred miles to the north, to pacify the native unrest while he prepared to execute Emperor Antoninus’ plans for a new frontier in Caledonia. The traders were going to Londinium, but certainly not to the back of beyond, which left Henricus with the option of sitting and twiddling his thumbs until the governor deigned to return – which might be months or more – or contriving a way up there by himself. And whereas the territory he had just crossed had been under Roman rule for centuries, Britannia was infamously wild, and the tribes never entirely brought under bridle. Everywhere more than a few leagues away from a fortress was potentially fatal, especially for a nearly-thirteen-year-old boy on his own who spoke no word of the local language, had no money, and indeed nothing at all except a cock-and-bull fable of being the governor’s long-lost grandson. This, Henricus realized in dismay, was going to take a lot of planning.

He was bolstered in the opinion that it would be ludicrously dangerous by the gossip making the rounds in the tavern where the traders had retired to spend their profit. And that was: as feared as the British tribes were, there was one from the west, from Hibernia, which was feared even more. Everyone knew that the Hibernians were gifted and intrepid seafarers, in their light and fast curraghs that could outrace even a fully manned war galley with a hundred oars, and they had taken to sailing up and down the British coast, ransacking, burning, robbing, and sowing general mayhem. Slipping in during the night and striking like a bolt from the blue, then running again before the stunned authorities could get their feet under them. Fearless and relentless and merciless, a band of pirates led by a man with a hook for a hand. Some of the wilder rumors held that he was no true man at all but a beastling whose thirst could only be quenched with Roman blood, a skinchanger or druid or worse. It was said he left no survivors _._ A considerable part of the imperial navy had been dispatched to put his reign of terror out of business, but he kept eluding them. The further the ships went from Gesoriacum in pursuit of him, the less likely it was that they returned. It was not thought out of the realm of possibility that he controlled the weather, and could summon a freak storm from the deep to sink them.

“But,” Henricus interrupted at this point, no longer able to hold his peace. “They’ll _get_ him, won’t they?” Any notion otherwise was almost literally unthinkable. He had never met a problem that Roman power and prestige could not solve, and this. . . small-time warlords had been rising up against the Empire while the blood was still drying on Brutus’ blade. With very rare exceptions, they were now either dead warlords, or ruling their kingdoms as puppets of the Roman state, with this nominal independence not to outlast their lifetime; they all generously, out of their noble love for the institution and great civilization conferred on them, designated the emperor as their heir. This _pirate_ was not even that. A savage dog, and deserved to die like one.

“That’s the trick, isn’t it?” The innkeeper looked sour. “He’s a sly vicious bastard, and neither the gods nor the demons can be arsed to do a thing about him except sit back and watch. Leave us to get slaughtered in our beds, most like.”

“But,” Henricus persisted. “The Empire takes its sacred duty to protect its citizens very seriously. Send to Rome for more men, they’d have to help you.”

The innkeeper snorted loudly. “That’d be the day. Who are you anyway, boy? Antoninus’ special little friend, the way Hadrian was buggering – pardons, _favoring –_ that Greek?”

Henricus’ face reddened. “Don’t you dare insult the emperor.”

Things were about to get very interesting indeed, when one of the traders, sensing that they might be thrown out on their ear if this kept up, and thus his access to plentiful beer unnecessarily complicated, put a heavy hand on Henricus’ shoulder and forced him back into his seat. “And you, you’ll learn to keep your mouth shut when men are talking. Another squeak out of you, and you can find out if you can bloody swim to Britannia yourself.”

Fuming, but forced into retreat, Henri sipped his weak ale and held his tongue.

\---------------

It was very late, very dark, very foggy, and otherwise disagreeable when the traders finally tottered out of the tavern, on their way back to the hostel where they had booked lodging. The ferry left bright and early for Portus Dubris, and Henricus had the sinking sensation that he would be the one responsible for rousting his companions out of bed despite their groans and curses and protests. It being a function he had fulfilled too often for his liking on the road, he was just scheming whether or not cold water would be involved in doing so, when something caught the corner of his eye. He half thought he had been inventing it, or that it had been perhaps the beacon from the great lighthouse, when it came again.

“What was that?” Henri stopped and frowned.

“What was what? Come on, boy, it’s late.”

“Hold _on.”_ His eyes having the advantage of being twenty years younger than the traders and furtherly not fuddled with drink, Henri wriggled free and peered down at the dark harbor. There had definitely been something moving, some kind of flash. He blinked hard, trying to erase it, telling himself it was a trick of the fog. One of the thick dank blankets that rolled in from the northern sea, that felt almost like wool in the lungs. Either way, they were right, it was late, he was tired, and –

_“Fire!”_

The cry came faint and panicked on the wind, followed a bare instant later by the explosion of a dazzling orange glow in the mist. Then came the explosion, revealing the dark figures thundering ashore, from the curraghs that had been pulled up close and silent in the moonless night, beached on the spit below the harbor, and then used as cover while they kindled the flame. Now Henri could see the shape of the running men, torches in one hand and swords in the other, as they kicked in windows and set fire to anything that would burn. And in that moment, understood. This pirate captain, this barbarian, had shrewdly waited until the navy was overextended in all directions, furiously hunting for him on the near and far coasts of Britannia alike. And then, brazen as you please, sailed down the channel and attacked Gesoriacum’s undefended heart.

Everything went to hell very quickly. Someone was ringing the bell in the watchtower, sleepy civilians were streaming from their houses with whatever makeshift weapons they could get their hands on, and others were trying to extinguish the rapidly spreading flames. As for Henricus, he was standing rooted in the middle of the road, the unearthly glare reflecting in his eyes. All he could think about, all he could see, was his parents gulped up by the blaze in Rome. His father running back in among the smoke and ashes and embers, and never coming back out. Their twisted, shrunken black bodies, the strength of the fire. Just him. _Alone._ It had taken everything.

Someone was shouting, but Henri didn’t hear. He began to run, wild as a spooked horse, dodging among the panicked throngs, the burning buildings, the smoke and heat and clashing swords. Someone might have seen him. He neither knew nor cared. Just had to get away, had to flee down to the water and jump in and hope it went away or went out. Couldn’t run fast enough to leave it all behind. Wanted, for the first time, to go home. To crawl into bed and sleep and wake up with his mother and father smiling down at him. His _real_ parents. No matter blood or birth or lies. Wanted them. Wanted them more than anything.

Huge mad shadows veered at him from every direction. Jostled back and forth in the human tide rush. Tripped, fell, took the skin off his hands and knees, couldn’t get back up, rolled desperately, covering his head. Someone kicking at him, the sear of smoke in his lungs. Then something caught him a smart sharp blow behind the left ear, and he barely had time to feel the pain before everything turned watery, grey, and then to black.


	3. Chapter 3

The first thing Henricus was aware of was the shooting pain in his head. The second thing Henricus was aware of was the parched, sickly rasp of dried salt and bile in his mouth, causing him to gag, spit, roll over, and splash facefirst into the brackish tidepool he had been lying in, sprawled on his back, dead to the world for who knew how long. The light was pale grey, indicating an uncertain midmorning hour, and matched well with the ashy, filthy air.

Grimacing, Henricus pushed himself to his feet, tottered, had to grab a nearby pillar for support, and made himself not do what he would very much have liked to, which was be sick everywhere. Once he’d swallowed it back, he started to wonder if the pirates had been defeated, if the port had been secured, if the people were safe. It was his duty, as a Roman citizen more or less of age, to ensure it, and he scouted around until he found a dropped sword lying abandoned, with no sign of its owner. Slinging it through his belt, and trying not to breathe too deeply because the smoke was still rasping his throat, he set off.

Most of the windows were shut, doors barred. Here and there he saw faint signs of life, but everyone always beat a smart retreat as soon as they saw him. For which reason Henricus had no idea; he _was_ still wearing his toga, however soot-stained. He was clearly not a pirate, they didn’t need to be frightened of him, and he at least had to find if the ferry was still running to Portus Dubris. If not – it was a long swim indeed across the channel, or several months to wait until it was rebuilt. Having very little money his own, that meant several months Henricus would be living on the streets, a prospect which was utterly appalling to him. Damnation, couldn’t the lot of them have waited one more day to launch their attack? Hungry, dirty, resentful, and, despite all his bravado, completely at a loss as to what he was going to do next, Henricus turned the corner, slid down a slick of mud, and stared out at the harbor.

The fog was still so thick that he could barely see a hundred yards, much less the thirty miles to Britannia, or whether the ferry was still at its anchor, had sailed, or sunk. But he could hear men’s voices, talking in some unknown language, see the wavering glow of a fire kindled from driftwood. It took him half an instant more to realize that, rather than stealing off again in the night like the brigands and barbarians they were, it was the pirates, loitering around to enjoy the fruit of their spoils. Sitting on the beach laughing and drinking, roasting something over the fire – all while good Roman civilians cowered in their houses, cold and frightened. And at that moment, a queer lightheadedness close to madness overtook Henricus. Even if no one else, _he_ at least would not stand for this.

“Avast!” He whipped out the sword, pointing it dramatically, and leapt down onto the sand. “Stand and face me, you villains!”

Heads turned in unison: unshaven, fierce, wild-looking men with long matted hair, Hibernian raiders clad in fur and leather and amber, each of them with knives stashed gods knew where and swords resting casually against rocks. They stared at him for an endless moment, clearly stunned. Then as one, they started to laugh uproariously.

Henricus flushed, but refused to look like a coward by withdrawing. He advanced further, the wet and briny sand squelching under his feet, aggressively flourishing the blade to either side to discourage any of them from coming near him. “You are miscreants and wrongdoers!” he warned them. “This is Roman territory, and you are unlawfully – ”

More blank looks and shrugs. They kept on chortling, clearly vastly amused by his efforts more than anything, and he supposed grimly that it was far too much to hope for barbarians to understand or speak the language of civilized men – that was why they were _called_ barbarians, after all, for their wild tongue that sounded only of “bar, bar, bar,” to Roman ears. He was just trying of how else to possibly communicate his message (he _had_ thought the drawn sword was rather unambiguous) when a voice from the end said, in accented but perfectly understandable Latin, “Put the blade down, boy.”

Henricus spun on the spot to look. By the way the laughter suddenly ceased as the speaker rose to his feet, he realized at once that this must be the captain. Not the tallest or the burliest of the raiders, but knit of salt-stained, sun-browned muscle, with black hair braided back from his face, piercing blue eyes, a grim mouth, and wearing (oddly) an old gladiator’s manicaover his right arm. However striking his looks were, however, they were nothing compared to Henricus’s realization that on his _left_ arm, the man wore, in place of his missing hand, a curved and lethally sharpened iron hook. This was him, then. The infamous bastard in the flesh.

“You.” Henri had meant to sound authoritative, commanding, but his voice squeaked. Standing there, he felt three years old, not almost thirteen. “You’re a – ”

“Pirate? Well spotted, boy.” The captain quirked one dark eyebrow. “Nothing gets past you, clearly. You don’t need to tell me you’re holding a sword, though. I can see that bloody well for myself. Why don’t you put it down, before I give an order you’d regret.”

Henri hesitated. The captain raised his good hand, and a low rumble ran through the crew. Hands the size of ham-hocks reached for swords, knives, clubs, and all sorts of violent implements.

Henri put the sword down.

“Now there’s a good lad,” the captain said approvingly. “Though I admire your pluck, running out here alone to challenge the lot of us. Brave little Roman. What’s your name?”

“What’s _yours?”_

The captain considered for a moment, then made an elegant, sardonic bow, his cultured manners and fluent Latin at utter odds with his wild appearance. “Killian mac Dáithí. However, I’m known these days by my more colorful moniker. Hook.”

“Oh.” Henricus should have had something more witty to respond to that, but couldn’t think of it offhand. “Marius Henricus Maximinus,” he said stiffly, trying to get around the oddity of pleasant introductions to a pirate. Habit nearly made him add, “At your service,” but he caught himself just in time. Instead he folded his arms and eyed Hook suspiciously.

“And what in Danu’s name are you doing here, Marius Henricus?” The captain enunciated the name so precisely that Henri knew he was being made fun of.

“None of your business.”

“Oh?” Hook echoed, mocking him. “You’d better learn to guard that tongue of yours, lad. You’re not in Rome anymore, by a damn long sight. Now, I’ll ask again. _What are you doing?”_

Henri hesitated one last time, but as he could not see the ferry, his former companions, or any way to get out of this that did not involve discretion as the better part of valor, he finally broke. “I was trying to get to Londinium. In Britannia. Not that I’ll be able to get there now, after – ”

“Londinium?” Hook’s blue eyes remained fixed on him. “Why?”

“I wanted to see the provincial governor.” Best to make the bastard think he was as important as possible, and worth far more alive than dead.

“Quintus Lollius Urbicus?” Hook spat. “If he wants you, then I’ll do my damndest to ensure otherwise. It would give me great pleasure to – ”

“It’s not Urbicus.” Uninformed savage. “I suppose _you_ haven’t heard, busy causing misery and mayhem as you have been, but there’s a new governor now. David Aurelius.”

For an eternal instant, there was complete silence. Hook looked verily as if someone had just thrown a stone and caught him dead to rights between the eyes, and for some reason, not sure why, Henri knew that this name meant something to him. Sudden hope that he might get out of this after all welled up in him; he tamped it down, anxious not to overplay his hand until he knew the precise nature of his advantage. “Well?” he said. “Anything else?”

“No.” Hook turned away, clearly trying to control his face. He opened and closed his good hand, flexing the fingers as if reaching for someone’s throat. “I hope you like swimming, boy.”

“Oh, do I?” Henri took a step. “What about if you sailed me across?”

“What in hell do you think I am? A bloody ferryman? Besides, you can’t pay.”

“Actually.” Henri thrust a hand into his tunic, to the one thing he had carefully saved, wondering if or ever it was to be proved useful. The moment of truth. He held out the silver ring Robin had given to him before he escaped Rome. “What about this?”

Hook bit back some undoubtedly bloodcurdling oath in Gaelic, taking two strides across the sand and snatching it out of Henri’s hand. His voice was low, dark, terrible when he snarled, “And where did you get this, exactly?”

“It was a gift.” Henri straightened his shoulders defiantly. “I didn’t steal it.”

The pirate turned the ring over and over in his hand. He was wearing several of his own – all of which looked like Roman signets, no doubt cut from the fingers of men he’d killed. His dark brows were knitted together over his thunderstorm of a face, as he finally looked back at Henri again. “Who gave it to you?”

“Robin.” Henri paused. “I don’t know any other name. A British slave in Rome.”

Hook closed his eyes. It looked as if this was information he manifestly could have done without, and now, knowing it, was bound to a course of action he would have considered unthinkable just a moment before. “All right,” he growled at last. “What do you want?”

“The governor isn’t in Londinium right now,” Henri said. “He’s in Eboracum. And I’d never get there on my own. I want you to take me there.”

The pirate barked a mirthless laugh. “In exchange for _what?”_

Henri glanced pointedly around at the smoking ruins of Gesoriacum harbor. It stuck in his throat, but honor was honor. “In exchange,” he said, “I’ll tell him that someone else did – did this. That you shouldn’t be punished for it.”

“But I did do it,” Hook said coolly. “I’m not the sort of man to blame another for my deeds or to let them take credit. Besides, I’m not bloody frightened of them. If they did want to punish me, they’d have to catch me first. With a legion, not some brave but stupid boy like you.”

“Please.” Henri didn’t know how to react after the pirate had turned down his first offer; he had assumed that any outlaw and thief would want immunity from persecution. He hated to be reduced to begging, but could see no other option. “He can pay you.”

“I don’t want his gold.” Killian mac Dáithí’s shoulders were hunched and hard. “I don’t accept any payment that I couldn’t take for myself. Especially not from them.”

“His daughter.” It was a shot in the dark, with no way of knowing whether it would help or hinder. “Emma Aurelia. She’s there. I need to talk to her.”

Killian – it was definitely the man just then, not the fearsome pirate captain – jerked as if he’d been stabbed. “Why?”

Henri selected the simplest explanation. “She was my patroness, back in Rome. My – my parents died in a fire, and I was orphaned. I’m traveling here in hopes she would take me in.”

Killian blew out an unhappy breath. But it was plain to Henri even then that he was beaten, that there was no other argument he would offer, nothing but at last a grudging acceptance. “Well then,” the captain said at last, almost under his breath. “Eboracum it is.”

\----------------

They crossed on the tide that evening, sailed all night beneath the glittering stars, and landed on the barren coast of Britannia as dawn was breaking the next morning. Now that their captain had made the decision to commit himself to Henri’s cause, the crew treated him with a sort of gruff camaraderie, even if he still spoke no word of Gaelic and they no word of Latin; if actual communication apart from back slaps and grunts was needed, Killian had to interpret. Henri was aware, however, that they referred to him by some word that did not sound at all flattering, and that plenty of them sported trinkets and medals from Roman officers they must have killed. He struggled not to feel personal offense on the dead men’s behalf, but it was hard. Even worse was knowing that he’d have to do the honorable thing and tell David Aurelius to spare them, whether or not Killian wanted it. They should suffer for the Romans they’d harmed and the damage they’d wreaked, but it could not come from him.

Killian warned him that it was a long travel north, that they went fast and rough, and that if Henri could not keep up with the pace, there would be no accommodations. Henri took this as a challenge, but by the end of the first day, he was completely exhausted, collapsing by the campfire and barely staying awake long enough to gulp down his portion of supper. He had vivid and demented dreams, and woke up feeling just as tired as when he’d gone to sleep. But the men were watching him, and he refused to look like a weak, pampered Roman nancy-boy, the confirmation of all their worst expectations. Grimly, he hoisted his pack and set out again.

For obvious reasons, they stayed well away from Roman roads and fortresses, guiding by queer marks on trees and rocks. When Henri asked, Killian told him that they were ogham, the writing of the druids. There was certainly plenty of evidence of people hidden in the green hills and dales, and one night Henri awoke to see Killian conversing with some blue-painted tribesman, who appeared to be drawing some sort of map with the a stick in the dirt. When the tribesman caught sight of Henri, his toga and short haircut, he became quite exerted, shouting, _“Romani!”_ in a thick accent and nearly waking the entire camp, but Killian hauled him back onto the boulder and appeared to inform him to the contrary. It was the sort of brusque, efficient authority he had with everyone; once or twice Henri found himself thinking it was a pity that he hated the Romans so much. He would have made a fine commander for a legion, serve in the army and fight for the glory of the empire. But instead, he was selfishly devoted to destroying them.

The further north they got, the wilder and further between any sign of civilization became. There was nothing but empty _space,_ mountains and fells and moors and streams, so much that Henri, who had hereto spent his entire life in the greatest city in the world, began to get unnerved. Paradoxically, he found himself sticking to Killian more closely; the pirate captain was not what you would call friendly or comforting, but he would at least usually answer Henri’s questions when he asked, and he was plainly devoted to making sure Henri arrived in one piece. Henri’s blisters had turned to calluses, his legs getting stronger and his stamina greater every day, and he was now mostly able to keep up without complaint. Correspondingly, the men had started to thaw towards him, and their teasing (so much as he understood it) had become more good-natured than not. They had let him have his sword back, apparently not at all feared that he might try to use it on them, and at supper that night, asked him a few curious questions. With Killian translating, Henri told them the tale of his parents’ death and his adventures across the empire to find Emma Aurelia, his patroness. While they were all interested and almost sympathetic, what Henri noticed was the great trouble that Killian had with saying her name. When the others had gone back to the main camp to lay out their bedrolls, he dared to approach the pirate, still sitting on the rock and staring into the fire. “You know her, don’t you. Emma.”

Killian grunted. “Whatever gives you that idea?”

“It’s obvious.” Henri plumped down next to him. “She was the reason you agreed to take me to Eboracum. Don’t lie, I know it was. And that manicayou wear – I think you were in Rome at one point. That you knew her there.”

Killian turned to face him at last. The smile he flashed was not at all friendly; teeth bared, walls up, so that Henri could almost see him transforming back into Hook. “Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answers to, boy.”

That reminded Henri so much of what Regina had said, back in Rome before he escaped, that it rocked him back as if he’d been pushed. And then – from nowhere, a sudden and horrifying possibility occurred to him, as if it had fallen from the sky at his feet. Killian knowing Emma, knowing Robin as well, Robin saying that Henri looked so much like his –

 _No._ He felt choked. No, it wasn’t that. No, it _certainly_ wasn’t that. Whoever had sired him once upon a time was dead, had to be. Some other slave, some –

“What was that?” Killian got to his feet abruptly, head cocked.

“What was what?” Henri hadn’t heard anything.

“That.” Killian was frowning, and this time Henri heard it as well. It sounded like the howl of a – well, some sort of animal, moving through the thick copse of trees in which they’d made their camp. Almost like a wolf. More than one, in fact. Like a pack. Close, and coming closer.

“It’s summer,” Henri said, trying to reassure himself. “They’d be fat and docile.”

“Normally, aye.” Killian’s hand had gone to his sword. “But with you bloody Roman bastards harrying the countryside, destroying all the food and fodder and hunting up all their usual prey, I’d not be so sure of that now.”

A faint foreboding settled into Henri’s stomach. He hopped to his feet and pulled out his own sword, hurrying to stand shoulder to shoulder with the captain. “Are we in danger?”

Killian adroitly scooped up a branch with his hook, thrust it into the embers of the fire, and blew it to life, sweeping the torch back and forth. The other men had retreated some distance away, to the sheltered riverbottom where they were sleeping – still in earshot, but not easily reachable in case of alarm. Henri took a better grip on the hilt of his sword, heart beating hard in his throat. He thought he saw shadows moving in the dark trees, but that could have been his over-stimulated imagination. He also felt stung at how Killian had once more so easily relegated him to the role of Roman bastard; there was a small part of him (very small, he reassured himself, and only because he was unavoidably spending so much time with them) that wanted to be seen as one of them, a fierce Celtic warrior. “I don’t see anything,” he said. “Let’s get back and – ”

The rest of what Henri had been going to say was cut off in a scream as a wolf the size of a pony leapt the fire and went straight for his throat. He hit the ground not an instant too soon – felt hot breath, slavering jaws, mad scrabbling – a sharp pain, blood dripping down his side – then quite abruptly, where the whirlwind of fur and teeth and claws had been an instant before, nothing. He sat up, confused and blinking, wondering if the wolf had abruptly vanished into thin air, but –

Then he heard a horrendous sound, half man, half beast, and whirled to see that Killian had thrown himself onto the wolf’s back. The two of them were wrestling furiously, legs and back paws tearing gouts from the ground, rolling over and over, as Killian jammed his hook between the wolf’s snapping jaws, trying to keep it away from his exposed throat. His eyes caught Henri’s briefly, and Henri could see the message he mouthed. _Run._

For an instant, Henri thought about it. But only for an instant. No honorable man ran from a fight, tarred himself as a coward. Aye, and he was sure the rest of the men would be delighted to take the Roman who had abandoned their captain to a gruesome death the rest of the way to Eboracum, no questions asked. Not like this. Not now.

With absolutely no more idea of what he was doing than when he’d leapt down in the middle of the pirates back in Gesoriacum, Henri charged.

He reached the fight, pulled out his sword, and began whaling away furiously at anything furry. The wolf twisted its head, snarling at him, but Henri stabbed blindly, again and then again, clutching onto his sword with both hands as it tried to tear it loose. He got one arm around its neck, hand fisted in its ruff – stabbing, still stabbing, as blood bloomed on his hands and he had no idea who it belonged to. The world had shrunk to nothing, to this, heat and madness and the fury of the beast, until finally it went to its knees and slumped beneath him, and in a funny, detached, disbelieving way, Henri realized that it was dead.

Panting, he lay sprawled on it for several more moments, bloody sword still clutched in his free hand. Then he rolled off and shoved the carcass away, suddenly panicking. “Killian? Killian!”

The pirate captain was flat on his back, not moving much. His right shoulder was a bloody mess; if he hadn’t been wearing the gladiator’s manica _,_ the wolf would have taken not just his hand but his entire arm off. A chunk of the beast’s flesh was still impaled on his hook, where he’d assisted Henri in its demise by cutting its throat, and he moaned in pain when he tried to sit up. He fell back heavily, breathing short and ragged.

“Let me see.” Henri’s hands hovered over the buckle of the manica _,_ which had been mashed and twisted almost beyond recognition. “Let me look.”

“No.” Killian’s good hand came up, trying to knock him away. “Help me up. . . get me back to camp. There must be more of them.”

“You’re bleeding too much,” Henri said, with a calm practicality that must certainly not belong to him. “Stop being a stubborn arse and let me look.”

Killian shook with something that must not be laughter, but dropped his hand and let Henri unbuckle the manica, easing it off. A further rush of dark, sticky blood came with it, making Killian groan again, and Henri felt a sudden twinge of remorse. The imprints of the wolf’s jaws were cleanly visible in his collarbone, and it turned Henri nearly faint to see how close it had come to catching the great artery in his neck. If it had gotten _that,_ there would be nothing anyone could do for him, but it seemed fortune favored the brave once more. He tried to think what could be used for a bandage, when something else caught his eye. A tattoo, etched in blue ink on the left side of Killian’s chest, over his heart. Roman letters, not Ogham. _Emma._

Henri sat back on his heels, feeling very much as if he too had just had the wind knocked out of him. Only the continued seep of blood from the deep puncture wounds reminded him that there was still an urgent task at hand, but he felt half dreamlike. Wanted to ask, couldn’t.

“What?” Killian grunted, clearly in considerable pain, not all there and not aware that Henri had seen it. “What?”

Henri shook his head. “Nothing,” he muttered, using a corner of his toga to wipe up the blood, tearing some off and tying it tightly, and otherwise contriving as much of a dressing as he could. Then he helped Killian up, pulled his good arm around his shoulders, and let the pirate put most of his weight on him as they limped down the hill toward the camp. The men, attracted by the ruckus, had just been on the verge of coming up to them, and took charge of their wounded captain with sharp exclamations of shock. Since Killian was going in and out of consciousness, he was in no fit state to translate, and thus Henri was reduced to explaining the fight with the wolf as best he could in sign language. After much confusion, they finally seemed to understand, and cast dark looks at the surrounding forest. Responsibility discharged, Henri took his leave to his own bedroll, stared up at the stars, and listened to the sound of the entire world as a lie.

\-----------

By the next morning, Killian was not in much better shape, but insisted on heavily bandaging up his arm and pressing them on; he said that they were almost to Eboracum and it was to no point and purpose to delay now, that he wanted the business over and done with. They had only gone a few hours, however, when it became starkly plain that Killian had to stop. He sat heavily on a boulder, unable to catch his breath, then summoned one of his underlings over and conversed with him in low-voiced Gaelic. Henri’s understanding of it had gotten somewhat better after weeks exposed to it, but he still couldn’t make out more than the basic gist. Killian seemed to be instructing the other man to go look for someone, to bring them back here. Quickly.

The man departed on his errand, and the others were left to anxiously pretend to occupy themselves. Henri got up and moved closer, staring at the pirate, trying to decide if there was really that much of a resemblance. The black hair, aye, and the blue eyes as well, and apparently the same pig-headed stubbornness and sarcasm and courage, but nothing to make him certain. Not really. _This_ man couldn’t be his father. Not this outlaw, this bastard, this hater of everything Roman, this slave and thief and murderer, this. . .

He couldn’t think of a good epithet. It made his head hurt, and strangely, his heart as well. Carefully, he squatted at Killian’s side. “You should come to Eboracum with me,” he said. “Get that looked at, cared for.”

Killian grunted again. “Don’t be an idiot. I can’t go within a league of a Roman city. They’d have my head off to decorate the gate before my foot crossed the threshold.”

Henri nearly shot back with some reply about how that was entirely the bugger’s own fault, but it felt like too literal a case of adding insult to injury. “I can protect you,” he insisted, not entirely certain if it was true. “If you’re coming with me, I’ll tell them not to.”

Killian gritted a sardonic, disbelieving laugh. “And what makes you think you can sway David Aurelius, boy?”

 _Because I’m his grandson,_ Henri thought. “Because I can. That’s a bad wound, you need it cared for.”

“It’s not the first wound I’ve ever taken, or the worst. I’ll live.”

“Fine,” Henri snapped, hurt despite himself. “Lose the other arm as well. It would serve you right, for everything you’ve done.” A sudden, uncontrollable pain was bubbling up in him, brimful, about to spill over. No, this man was most certainly _not_ his father. They were nothing alike. He didn’t want to be anything that Killian was, and very much doubted that Killian wanted to be anything _he_ was. Marius Victorus was the only father he would ever name, acknowledge, or desire, and Marius Victorus was dead. “I don’t care.”

Killian turned to look at him sharply. He seemed about to say something, when the man who had been sent off trudged back into sight over the hill – but not alone. He was accompanied by a tall, rough-hewn, black-haired youth, who nonetheless for some reason looked vaguely familiar. Apparently Killian thought so as well, because he bolted to his feet, said something incredulously in Gaelic, and clapped the youth on the shoulder, grimacing. After a long conversation and more signs of familiarity on both their parts, Killian turned to Henri. “This is Roland. He has a way to get into the governor’s villa in Eboracum. He’ll take you there.”

“But – ” It was what he had wanted, what he had striven for half a year now, and yet Henri couldn’t help feeling hollow. “But I – ”

“Listen to me, boy. You and I, we’re done. You saved my life, I got you here. That’s it. There’s nothing left. No loyalty on either side. Bloody damnation. _Go.”_

“But – ” To hell with it, Henri decided. They were the only two men here who understood Latin, and he was sick of lies. “You want to see her!” he yelled. “Emma Aurelia. I know you do. You were in love with her. I think you still are. Are you just going to run?”

Killian’s pale face went even paler, the color of bone or winter sky. He stared at Henri as if he had never seen him before, could not quite formulate words. Then he said, sounding as if his heart was being torn out of his chest again, “Aye, I loved her. Is that what you wanted to hear?”

“Then why won’t you – ”

 _“Because she’s happy!”_ Killian roared, so loudly that it echoed off the rocks, making his men blink and stare at him; even if they did not understand Latin, they could clearly hear his rage and pain. “She’ll be happy now, away from me, from that pain. That was all I ever wanted – for her to be happy, with or without me, and since it damn well was not and will never be with me, _couldn’t be_ with me!” He swayed and fell to his knees in front of Henri, begging, anguished. “That bastard – Gold, Cassianus, whatever they call him – he took my hand, he destroyed us, destroyed her, and I’ve spent every day since wanting revenge! On the Romans, on all of them, and now – to do that to her – it nearly killed me to let her go the first time! I can’t do it again!”

Henri felt staggered, stunned. Didn’t know what to do or say. This was not real, this was not happening. “Then you did it,” he said, harshness and grief spilling over too fast, before he could catch it. “You as good as destroyed her yourself.”

The expression on Killian’s face could not have been more agonized if Henri had taken out his sword and driven it into him, to the heart. The instant the words were out, Henri would have given anything to take them back, wanted to scream that he didn’t mean them, that he didn’t understand, that he was a lost boy, more lost than he’d ever dreamed – but it was too late. Killian jerked his head, and Roland seized Henri by the arm, marching him off, up over the path and out of sight, as he was still too much in shock to offer any resistance. When he looked in front of him, the walls of Eboracum were just visible on the horizon, a low dark smudge. But when he looked behind him, the pirates had already vanished without a trace into the mist.


	4. Chapter 4

As the great gate groaned open and Emma trotted through, the wind caught at her hood and almost pulled it back, and she had to take one hand off the reins to pull it tight. Then steered them through the steep, narrow streets of Eboracum, bent low over the horse’s neck, the fresh air still coursing through her blood. With a sword slung on her back, riding astride like a man, she felt more alive than she had in months, and considered that it was the one good thing to have come of her parents discovering her training regimen. They knew she was miserable here, and despite their misgivings, had allowed her to continue, as well as to be properly instructed. They had strongly objected to her going out by herself, thinking it much too dangerous, but Emma had ignored that. If they had known her real occupation these days, they would have objected more.

She wasn’t sure how she had fallen into it, exactly. Just that when she met Roland in the early mornings and gave him food, he would sometimes mention certain individuals who were troubling the tribes, and one day she had gone out with him to do something about it. And after that, never bothered to stop. Bounty hunting was something she had turned out to be quite good at, and since she spoke Brythonic and could pass herself off as a lone-wolf mercenary, she had started taking jobs for a few of the local clan chiefs, who certainly did not know either that she was Roman or that the governor was her father. They did not care that she was a woman; among Celts, women were known as some of the fiercest fighters, and they paid well to boot, in goldwork and amber and beads and runestones, the sort of thing Emma could get a servant to discreetly trade for Roman denarii at the market. Yet every time she plunged into that other world, where nobody told her what she could not do, where she was fighting back against the powerful men who had destroyed her, it was harder and harder to return to Eboracum, change back into her Roman clothes, and pretend to be a dutiful daughter again. One day soon, she would ride into the forest and never return, and the thought both thrilled and terrified her.

Still, for now, here she was. Emma rode through into the courtyard of the villa, reined up, and swung down. Still breathing hard, she handed her horse off to a servant; the household just thought she enjoyed vigorous and very long rides, and she had never bothered to disabuse them. She hurried through the cloisters and into her rooms, shucking her sweaty tunic and leggings, and pulled a linen stola over her head, shaking her hair loose from its braid. It was the height of summer, and stayed light long into the night; the _cena_ started in the evening on the outdoor patio, and could be enjoyed pleasantly and leisurely for hours. Assuming the weather cooperated, that was. It had been raining and misting for the past week, and Emma was heartily sick of it. Missed the sun and heat of Rome. But no longer felt much desire, if at all, to go back there. It felt like a ghost in the back of her head, a fading life that barely belonged to her anymore.

Her work this morning had been hungry, and she was contemplating going to the kitchens in search of a late luncheon. Then she was startled instead by a knock on the door, and a servant’s voice, sounding strangely tentative. “Mistress Aurelia?”

Emma sighed. “Aye?”

“Mistress, there. . . there is a visitor for you, in the solarium.”

 _Visitor?_ Emma didn’t like the sound of that. Roland would never be foolish enough to approach the house in broad daylight; he was careful about creeping in the darkness before dawn, waiting for her to pass him food through the postern, and then sneaking off again. He did his best to make it last as long as possible so that he didn’t have to risk the journey every day; it was death if he was caught. And no one else visited her here. “Who?”

“A young man, my lady.”

 _What the. . .?_ Roland wouldn’t have come now unless it was desperately urgent, and Emma’s heart sped up. She got to her feet, shrugged on a shawl, and hurried after the servant. Ducked into the solarium, its glass-paneled roof admitting what scanty sunlight there was to be had on this miserable day, glanced around, didn’t see Roland, was extremely confused, and –

Emma’s feet froze to the spot. She couldn’t quite believe what she was seeing, felt as if she was about to lose her balance, or as if the earth was about to open up and swallow her. It was indeed very much like looking at a ghost. He was almost thirteen, not the round-faced ten-year-old she had left behind, but tall and lean and travel-worn, freckles fading on his high cheekbones and his black hair tousled and dirty. He was shifting anxiously from foot to foot, evidently not sure what kind of reception he was going to get, hands clasped behind his back, but he straightened up when he saw her, clearing his throat. “Hello,” he said. “My name’s Henri. I’m your son.”

 _Of course you are,_ was her first thought, followed by, _But how in the_ gods’ _name does he know that?_ She made some kind of indeterminate sound, still staring at him, then managed to croak out, “Give me a moment.” Dove behind one of the pillars into a small antechamber, shut the door, and heaved a few breaths on the edge of hysteria before she could regain control of herself. Her hand was still shaking as she pulled the door open and dared to venture back out, staring at him. _Henricus._ He couldn’t _be_ here, she’d left him in Rome, safely and blissfully ignorant with his parents. He couldn’t _be here._ But he was. Standing there, looking worried that he had sent everything to hell already. “Mistress. . . Aurelia?”

“Henricus,” she said tightly, unable to pull enough air into her lungs. “What do you want?”

He cleared his throat again. “I. . . know. The truth. My – my parents are dead. But Regina – she told me that they weren’t. That you’re my real mother. That you gave me up for adoption.”

“I did,” Emma said faintly, sinking into the chair. “I’m sorry.”

Henri shrugged. “I just.” He looked at the floor. “I wanted to come here and find out the truth. Regina wanted me to stay in Rome, but I didn’t. So. So I’m here.”

Emma nodded. Her knuckles were going white. She didn’t know if he was angry at her, if he wanted to confront her, if he was planning to move in and become part of the family, if she was ready or able to be his mother now or ever. A terrible, impossible joy had flowered in her at seeing his face, followed at once by a wrenching grief for all the missing years. This stranger, this boy, this child, her child. She could remember the first time he’d kicked inside her, how it had been such a revelation to feel him, to realize that he was real, that he’d be born, he’d be a person, that he would have a life, an existence, consequences. How, just like now, her happiness had been followed by the terrible knowledge that she’d never be able to keep him. That somehow, while she’d made him, he had already been stolen from her.

“You came all this way?” she said at last. “By yourself?”

Henri hesitated. “I was with a trading caravan for most of the journey from Rome. Then in Gesoriacum. . . well, I wasn’t anymore. But Roland brought me the last distance here, after – ”

“Roland?” Emma interrupted, shocked. Apparently that chase across the moors had been more significant than even she knew. “Do you mean – ?”

Henri looked just as surprised. “You know him?”

“Aye. If it’s the same.” But something was nagging in the back of Emma’s head. “You were separated from the traders in Gesoriacum? In Gaul?”

Henri’s expression turned oddly shifty. “Yes.”

“And you came all this way by yourself? Across Britannia?” It seemed unlikely.

“No,” Henri admitted. “I was with a band of Hibernian raiders for most of it. A long story.”

“Indeed?” Emma’s stomach gave a momentary lurch, but she reminded herself not to read too much into it. Hibernians, Scoti, Picti, Celts, Gaels, Brigantes, and every other sort of native people freely crisscrossed the isles, one as likely as any other, even if the north of Britannia seemed a strange place for a pack of Hibernians to find themselves. “How did that happen?”

Henri hesitated again. It seemed this was a topic he could not quite bring himself to confront, his eyes flickering away from hers. Suddenly he burst out, “Who was my father?”

 _Oh gods._ No. _No._ He could only be asking that question if – no, it could have – but no, he – Emma felt as if the ground had been peeled away from her, tipping her into the underworld like Persephone. She had momentarily stopped breathing. A voice that did not sound like hers, from a very long way away, croaked, “What makes you ask?”

“The captain, he – ” Henri stopped. “Of course not,” he said, in a more conciliatory tone. “I was fool to think of it. I just – ”

 _“Where is he?”_ Emma was up and across the floor before she even realized that she’d moved, her fingers digging into his shoulders, hard enough that the boy flinched. The expression on her face must have been alarming. “Did you see him? Did you – ” She checked herself, pulling back, horrified at how much she had revealed herself, her heart pounding wildly. She hadn’t even uttered his name aloud in years, kept it locked away, like a jewel too rare to be spent. “Killian?”

Henri stared at her. Whatever response he had been expecting, it clearly wasn’t this. Finally he said stiffly, “He – he saved my life. We were attacked by a wolf, last night, and he. . .”

Emma closed her eyes. “And he?” she repeated, sounding much more composed than she felt. If the next words out of Henri’s mouth were going to tell her that Killian had heroically died to save him, she didn’t know what she would do. “He what?”

“He jumped on it for me,” Henri said. “Why would he do that?”

“I don’t know.” Emma swallowed heavily. “He – he doesn’t know about you. He never did.”

Silence. Henri seemed unmoving, unbreathing, just like her. Then at last he said in a strange, thin voice. “So he is? My father?”

“Yes.” Emma’s own voice was a whisper. “Is he alive? Henri, tell me, is he alive?”

Without looking up, her son nodded.

 _Alive._ And here. Close enough that Henri had been with him last night, fighting wolves in the darkness. “Hurt?”

“Aye.” Henri’s gaze shifted back to hers for an instant, but couldn’t seem to stay. “The wolf nearly tore his arm off. I tried to get him to come here and have it cared for, but he’s a stubborn bastard. He refused.”

“Did he?” _He doesn’t want to see you. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t care._ Hoping otherwise would crack her in half. Her voice shook. “Did he. . . say why?”

“Because he said you were happy.” Henri evaluated her. “That that was all he had wanted for you. That letting you go once almost killed him, and he couldn’t do it again.”

 _Happy?_ Emma let out an involuntary sound, a sharp stab of a laugh, that cracked in half at the end, and silent tears began to spill down her cheeks. _Happy._ That was the last, the _last_ word she would have used to describe what her life had been for the last decade and a half, the one thing she had started to wonder if she could ever be again – not just hiding in a shell and putting up a face, not just hurting, not just surviving in a haze. Without another word, she spun around, seized the clay decanter off the table, and hurled it at the wall. Broken pieces and spilled wine bloomed everywhere, spreading across the floor, and she went to her knees in wordless pain and grief. Seized everything else she reach, shattering it, the only possible way to alleviate even a bit of the inferno in her heart, until a hand closed over hers, and Henri knelt next to her, grabbing hold of her. “Emma,” he pleaded. “Emma, please. Please, don’t. Don’t. You’re hurting yourself. Stop.”

Emma shook, convulsing, rocking back and forth, picking up one of the jagged porcelain shards and squeezing it into her palm until blood began to run down her wrist. Henri dove for her hand and pried her fingers open, making her drop it, and she struggled back against him, hitting him, as he threw up a clumsy arm, trying to block it. She hammered with both fists, breaking down, the accumulated scars of thirteen years breaking open, the pain she had never faced, the tears she had never wept, the loss she had never come to terms with, unable even to make a sound, mouth twisted in a silent scream. The girl, the praetor’s daughter, the innocent _fool,_ the girl who had risked everything and lost it. She couldn’t see through the hot salt of grief. Finally collapsing onto the floor, she lay outstretched, wanting only to sink into the earth and be consumed.

“Emma?” Henri said timidly. His hand hovered above her shoulder as if to comfort her, but not quite touching. “Emma?”

“What?” Emma rasped at last, her voice thick and deep and hoarse. She closed her eyes.

“Let me get a servant.” Henri made a move to get to his feet. “You should be in bed. Or – ”

“No.” Emma caught hold of him with her uninjured hand, held him fast, and pulled herself upright. “You. Stay here. You’ll be safe.”

“But – ” Henri looked shocked and unhappy. “Where are you going?”

The only place she could.

Once and for all, to her fate.

\----------------

An hour later, Emma had left Eboracum behind and was riding hard south, following what little Henri had been able to tell her. She kept the horse at a gallop until it began to blow, then slowed it, but still kept up a hard pace, weaving through the desolate fells, queerly unafraid. There was nothing worse that could happen to her, any more. Either she found him, or she didn’t. Either he lived, or he didn’t. Either he wanted her still, or he didn’t. But not now, not for a day longer, was she going to live like this, and that was all she could ask. No powerful men or dangerous bargains, no gladiatorial games, no broken betrothals, none of it. Just her. Just them.

She was grateful for the long summer hours of daylight, but even it was starting to dim by now, and she had found almost nothing to go by; the Hibernians were clearly moving fast and good at covering their tracks. But all those months she had spent out in the Britannic wilderness, hunting dangerous men alone, were not for nothing, and she began to see a trodden bit of bracken here, a footprint in the peat there, until at last she was certain of the trail. Spurred the horse faster, remembering Henri’s tales of wolves come hunting in the night, until at last she crested a final rise and saw them in front of her, not more than a hundred yards. Fifteen or twenty men, and –

– she couldn’t hope, wasn’t , but was –

He was one of them. Walking as if every step was agony, his right shoulder wrapped in bloody bandages, until all she could see was how she had carried him to the catacombs after Gold had taken his hand, and then smuggled him out of Rome to the villa at Terracina. How by sheer stubbornness on both of their parts they had saved his life and then lost each other anyway, how that last night must have been when they made Henri, and now this night now, a thousand miles and a thousand more, a thousand days, a thousand nights, a thousand years. Until the shout got stuck in her chest, and she had to punch it free. _“Killian!”_

He stopped dead in his tracks, unmoving for so long that it looked as if he had turned to stone. His men turned half around in confusion, and then saw her. As she was dismounting, almost falling from her hours in the saddle, bow-legged and cramped and exhausted, thighs bleeding, but running. Running, running, never reaching him, half afraid that he was going to fade away like another phantom, like all the times he had when she’d dreamt of him and reached over only to find an empty bed, and then she was in his arms.

Killian almost overbalanced, staggering backwards until they ran into a boulder and slid down it together, grunting in pain but clearly not caring, tangling his good hand and his hook into her hair as she wrapped both arms around him, both of them heaving with sobs, mouths crashing together, not a kiss, too violent, biting, devouring each other, gasping, she lying half on top of him, until he got hold of her face with his good hand and grasped it, staring at her, speechless. “You’re real?” was the only thing he could croak, over and over. “You’re real?”

“Aye,” Emma gasped, pressing her forehead to his, cheek, nose, breathing together, tasting the salt of his tears, every pore and inch of him, his solidness, his weight, _him, him, him,_ she was never losing him, never leaving again, kissing again, trying to inhale him, crawl inside him, as he was patently doing the same to her, tangling and grappling; more blood was showing on the bandages, but he plainly could not feel a thing. His hand closed in the matted hair at the nape of her neck, fingers tracing behind her ear, eyes closed, until they finally spent themselves and just lay there, utterly drained, in each other’s arms. She could hear the deep slow thump of his heart under her ear, wanted to die there, finally at peace. It would not have mattered. Not at all.

At last, when Emma could sense the aghast stares of his men on her back – they would have had no notion why a strange woman would have ridden up and thrown herself into their captain’s arms, she supposed, far less why their captain would have reciprocated – she sat up slowly, trying to pull herself together. She brushed some of the dirt off, smiling helplessly, reaching for the bandage on his shoulder. “Let me see that.”

Killian made a move as if to hide it. “It’s nothing.”

“No,” Emma said tartly. “It’s _not_ nothing. Stop being a stubborn arse and let me see.”

Killian blinked at her, looking briefly and completely taken aback; almost fourteen years apart and yet within moments of their reunion, she was already ordering him around again. But it seemed as if something else about that had struck him, enough to make him frown, shake his head, then reach up for the bandage, clumsily pulling it loose.

Emma sucked in her breath. Looking at the angry red veins beginning to spider out in all directions from the deep punctures, the discoloration of the torn flesh, and the faint smell that made her wrinkle her nose, she did not need to be a physician for her diagnosis to be certain. “It’s infected. You need to come with me back to Eboracum and have it treated, or you’ll die.”

Killian raised one eyebrow at her. “That so, lass? Only the Romans know how to treat a corrupted wound? I’ll manage.”

“No,” Emma snapped, exasperated. It was truly astounding how in such a short time, this man could make her go from weeping on his chest to cursing his pig-headedness. “You won’t. And I am _not_ letting you go just because you’re too stubborn to see this done, to – ”

“Lass.” Killian caught her wrist with his hook, apparently as a deterrent in case she started hitting him to make her point. “You don’t understand. I’m a bloody pirate. I’ve been attacking Roman ships and ports whenever and wherever I can. Bring me in there, and you might as well light the torch yourself. One thing I excel at is surviving. I’ll find another way.” He smiled wearily. “To speak of which, I hope the boy found you. Your client from Rome. He was looking.”

“Henricus?” Emma swallowed. “Yes, he. . . he found me. But. . . he. . . Killian, he. . .”

Killian stared at her with furrowed brow. “He what, love?”

She almost flinched again at that easy endearment, at how long it had been since a man had looked at her with such transparent sincerity and affection, how it felt like golden balm pouring into the cracks of her soul. Yet now was not the time. “Thank you for taking care of him.”

His face relaxed, and he smiled crookedly. “I’ll not say it was my favorite of tasks, tell you true. Bloody proud little prick, puffed up with Roman this and Roman that. But not altogether bad. Brave, I’ll give him that. Like as not he saved my life when the wolf got me.” Using his chin to indicate his wounded shoulder, he added, “Well, almost.”

Emma’s throat closed. “Come on,” she said at last. “Killian, please. Come with me.” All she could think of was what Henricus had told her, how he had said that it almost killed him to let her go the first time, how she had wondered, always wondered, if he had managed to do it and now wanted it over. Their situation remained as impossible as it had been the first time they had fallen in love, beneath the shadows of Rome. He was a pirate now, an outlaw, doubtless wanted from one corner of Britannia to the other, and she – she was. . .

For a moment, a terrible moment, Emma wavered. He was right. They did not have to go back. Could run away together now, the freedom that both of them had so sorely craved, within their grasp. But Henri was back in Eboracum, and she was not leaving him behind again. As well, no matter Killian’s bravado about his shoulder wound, she was no novice when it came to such things, had seen too much of it here in the rough frontiers of Britannia. It was already festering, on the verge of turning septic, and she had come too far, endured too much, to sit by and watch his own stubbornness take him away from her now. Even if it was hog-tied and thrown over the back of her horse, he was coming. As to how she would protect him once they arrived, that was another matter, but not one she was going to trifle with.

He must have seen the look in her eyes. “Swan,” he said, half-laughing – calling her by that pet name he’d given her back in Rome, when he had told her that she reminded him of one of the fierce beautiful birds, caught in a cage and forgotten how to fly. It made her heart turn over that he still remembered. “What are you going to – do you really think I’ll leave my men out here in the middle of a – ”

Turning to them, he acquainted them with the situation in an economic rattle of Gaelic, clearly expecting them to be of similar mind. It was clearly to his great surprise when they vehemently disagreed. No matter the danger, no matter that it entailed taking him into the heart of a Roman settlement, and that they’d have to continue on their own, they would rather have his life saved. They had faith that all would be arranged accordingly, would attend to getting themselves out of the reach of the authorities and back to Hibernia. They’d see him when they did.

Thwarted, Killian bared his teeth and growled at them, but apparently failed to intimidate them into changing their opinion. From the significant glances they threw at her, Emma felt quite sure that they must have known something about her, that Killian must have said something about the Roman woman he had loved once upon a time. _Or was he boasting that he had taken even that from them?_ She did not want to think that was so. But it had been so long. So far. So lonely.

Arguments finally disposed of, Killian was finally and grudgingly persuaded to mount up behind Emma on her horse, putting his left arm around her waist. It was twilight, darkness falling thick and fast, and in deference to the fact that they had already ridden hard and long, Emma kept the horse to a staid amble. The stars were slowly coming out overhead, and she felt as if she had never seen them before, never been alive, with Killian’s solid, warm male presence behind her, the musk of his sweat and blood, his chin resting on her hair, as she could feel him shifting uncomfortably but never making a sound; a Hibernian Celt born and bred to the sea would have no familiarity whatsoever with riding. At first, Emma thought that Killian’s intermittent losses of balance, the way he grabbed hard at her waist to pull himself upright again, were due to that, but in an hour or two more, she realized the truth. He was almost passing out, the bandages over his shoulder turned dark and sticky crimson with heartsblood, and with miles to go back to Eboracum, he was quite simply not going to make it.

“No!” Emma reined up, dismounted, and caught Killian as he slid off, staggering. She could feel the flush of fever on his skin, the heat and putrefaction boiling off his wound; it had turned livid, the arm sagging as grotesquely as if it had been dislocated. Taking most of his weight, she supported him into a little grove of trees – druids were said to venerate them, she thought desperately, it was as much home as she could give him. She helped him lie down and then sprang back up, thinking madly. There were potions and unguents in the saddlebags, things she’d traded from the clan chiefs, medicines – something there, something had to help, she tore through them, pulling out clay vials, pulling the cork and wax out, trying to judge which smelled the most healthful –

“Emma.”

Or she could make a fire, treat it by burning the corruption out, change the bandages at least. Or make him comfortable, not drag him miles across the empty moors on a painful ride to a city he wanted no part of – she thought of Henricus back there, waiting –

_“Emma.”_

She had heard him this time – had heard him the first time as well, but couldn’t quite bring herself to look at him. Now, slowly, she did. He was watching her, tears shining in his eyes, not merely from the heat of his fever. “Emma,” he rasped. “Lass. Stop.”

“No.” She kept her arms tightly crossed, holding herself together, already afraid that she’d let herself come to pieces too much. “Shut up. I’m going to find a way to save you.”

A corner of his mouth quirked, too sadly to be a smile. “You. . . you already did. Now please. Stop. Come here. I want to touch you, I want to look at you in what time I have, and I don’t want it to be with you running yourself ragged, desperate, over me again. I’ve already caused you too much pain. I’m. . . I’m sorry, love. I’m so sorry. I should have fought, I should have damned everything, if it meant – ”

 _“No,”_ Emma burst out furiously. “You _shouldn’t_ have. You gods-damned _idiot._ Just like a man, thinking that you, one slave, could have made a difference. . . There was no _choice._ Gold would have destroyed us, destroyed us both, brought down the empire and everything we had ever – ”

“But it doesn’t matter now,” Killian interrupted. “You found me. _Found_ me.” He grimaced. “Emma,” he whispered. “Please.”

Staring at him, his profile gilded in the light of the luminous stars, Emma had nothing to say. No more defense. She went to him, sat down, and lifted his hot head into her lap. Her hands were trembling, her heart spinning like a coin flicked with a thumb. Of all the things she wanted to say, the years she felt most sorely robbed of, she could only come up with one thing. “Henricus.”

Killian’s bruised eyelids flickered. “Eh?”

“Henricus,” Emma repeated. “He’s. . . he’s not just my ward. He’s my son.”

 _“What?”_ At that, his eyes did open. “Something about him did remind me of you, but. . .” Killian hesitated. “He said his parents were dead, that you were his patroness, and – ”

“Aye. That was all I could ever be to him. I gave him up when he was born. Like you, I had no choice but to do it. He’s almost thirteen, Killian. I saw you in him every day.”

“You – ” A look of total, uncomprehending shock was taking over the pirate’s face, replacing the pain. He couldn’t seem to get head or tongue around the idea. “Henricus – he’s – he’s _our –_ ”

“Aye,” Emma whispered again. “He is.”

“He’s – _our –_ ” Killian’s entire body shuddered, back arching, fighting harder, furiously, shaking, wild. Emma could barely hold onto him, until a silent tempest seemed to be raging in him, until he twisted around and buried his face in her lap and she stroked his filthy dark hair, tears spilling down her own cheeks as well. She could only make out one thing from what he kept saying, over and over. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

She held onto him, both of them too heartbroken to speak, almost to breathe, as she could almost feel the shards in her chest. But as Henricus had steadied her, she steadied Killian, until at last, heedless of the wounds of time and space alike, she bent down and began to kiss him, every part of him she could reach, fingers finding him in the darkness, tracing him, imprinting him into her, every touch she had lingered and dreamed of in memory for over a decade. Until she found his mouth and he kissed her back, as they fell into the dirt together, still holding on.

She kissed him until he finally fell silent, until he lay still, and then she reached for one of the vials she had brought over from the saddlebags. Uncapped it, pulled away the bandages, whispered, “I’m sorry,” to him in return, and poured it over the wound.

Killian’s head flung back, emitting a howl fit to frighten the wolves themselves, pounding his fist on the ground. Emma could barely control him long enough to wrestle him into a headlock and force another of the vials down his throat, as he retched and spat and tried to twist away, but she held it there until he’d swallowed most of it. He cursed at her in Gaelic, eyes mad and unseeing, but she didn’t let go. She threw a knee into his chest and shoved him flat, then began to pull away the blood-crusted bandages, remembering what the pagans had done to treat him after he lost his hand, following it through the haze of memory as best she could. Killian kept struggling and cursing, but she ignored him, straddling him, working with her hands and with something more, until his burst of spirit ran out and he sank back, unconscious.

In Emma’s opinion this was all to the good, discouraging further interference, and she sank her teeth into her lip, working steadily, cleaning and cutting away the putrid flesh. The Emma Aurelia raised in Rome, sheltered and pampered with every worldly luxury and good, to whom blood and gore were mere matters of spectacle in the arena, could never have done this, but the Emma Aurelia who had gone to Britannia, hardened and alone, had learned how, as a matter of her own survival. _I tended wounds far deeper than this, that never showed._ She rose and went back to the saddlebags, took out the bone needle and catgut she kept there, and stitched Killian back together as best she could, grateful that he stayed _non compos mentis_. Then, exhausted as if she had just beat back the denizens of the underworld with her own hands – and perhaps she had – she lay down next to him. Couldn’t summon up the will to care about anything except being here, one arm lightly draped over his stomach, her nose pressed into his neck. _Come back to me._

The hours slipped by, stealthy as a thief. The stars reeled overhead. She wanted to stay awake, to catch the moments close, but her eyelids were heavy as lead, and she sank inexorably into dreams. Shadowed figured, half-formed memories. The grey ship that had taken him away as she stood in the dawn sea at Terracina, still a girl but no longer young. The days and nights and weeks and years that had passed since, without, without. Until her lips shaped the word, until it was branded into her skin, every breath. Without Henri, without Killian, without even herself. Until she had realized that she had crawled so far into the barrow as to forget every touch and breath of life and light, and never found the way back out.

She came back to herself slowly, hovering just under the surface for an eternity before she woke. Early morning sunlight was slanting onto her face, and she could hear running water, the horse cropping grass. It felt so calm and perfect that she wondered if she was dreaming. But her leg was cramped, her mouth dry with thirst, and as she sat up, she realized that Killian was still lying next to her, eyes closed. His color was much better, no longer feverish, and his breathing was the deep slow cadence of dreamless sleep, not the fitful, agonized thrashing of wounded delirium.

Her heart twisted painfully. She could have watched him for a very long time, but she had to get up, stretch the pins and needles from her sore muscles, have a drink from the stream, and then return to carefully inspect her handiwork. His shoulder still looked heinous, but the swelling and redness had gone down, and the only blood was crusted, instead of fresh.

Stirred by her ministrations, Killian’s eyes fluttered. She saw a crack of blue under his dark lashes, a long moment of utter confusion, and then comprehension. He smiled crookedly. “Hey, beautiful,” he husked. “Good morning.”

“Morning.” Emma’s lips pulled up, despite herself. “You’re an idiot.”

He looked hurt. “Why?”

“Take my word for it.” She lay down next to him again, felt a faint current of tension ripple through him, and frowned. “What?”

“It’s just damnably unfair to have a beautiful woman curled so close to me, especially you _,_ when I’m weak as bloody water and could not stand up, in any way you could possibly desire, without fainting.” Killian made an exasperated face. “Have you _any_ idea what you are doing to me?”

“Good,” Emma said innocently, snuggling closer. “After what you put me through last night, I think you could do with a spot of torture.”

“Cruel wench.” Killian groaned aloud. “To speak of torture, what in Danu’s name did you do to my shoulder? It feels as if you took the quills of a hedgehog, lit them on fire, and stuck them in.”

“I sewed it up after I stopped you from dying like a dog. You’re welcome.”

Clearly noting the edge in her voice, he twisted around to stare at her. Then a genuinely awed and humbled smile flowered across his face. “You are bloody brilliant, lass. Amazing.”

“Flattery is not going to soften me, you know. And as soon as you feel strong enough to ride, we do still have to get you back to Eboracum. I’m not sure I could save you if this happened again.”

“Well, that wouldn’t be desirable at all, would it,” Killian murmured. “But I’m in no hurry.”

“No,” Emma allowed after a moment, pressing closer. “I’m not either.”

\----------------

At last in the late morning, after she had contrived what food could be had, and Killian was able to stand up without swooning, they carefully mounted up and set out. Emma wondered if search parties had been sent out for her, or if Henricus had managed to convince them otherwise; she had not told him when she intended to return, not knowing it herself. But there were no interruptions as they rode across the countryside, making much better time with a rested mount and a halfway recovered Killian. He held tight to her waist with only a few muttered oaths, and after a long silence, they finally ventured a few general questions. There was so much to catch up on, even if they barely knew where to begin, and they were doing their best when they cantered over the final rise, came in sight of Eboracum, and –

Emma reined in so hard that the horse almost sat down. A horrible chill raced down her spine, a vertigo so profound that she nearly fell seizing hold of her, a long dark echo. As if she was caught in an old bad dream, and had never woken up after all.

Because she recognized the standard flying on the walls. Knew that the men her father had sent for from Rome, in order to fulfil Emperor Antoninus’ vision of the conquest of Caledonia, had finally arrived. And knew, as well, who was commanding them. Who had come here. Risen from the ashes.

Gaius Flavius Cassianus.


	5. Chapter 5

At least she recovered quickly from the shock. Still staring bleakly at the banners, the terror and danger that they promised, her own half-serious conviction that Gold was some sort of dark sorcerer conjured up to hunt them for all time, Emma’s next thought was that there was no way, in this life or any other, that she had saved Killian’s wretched pirate skin just to lose him now. She didn’t care what was coming, she didn’t care what must be faced, only that it would be. Jaw grimly set, surveying the walls of Eboracum for a moment longer, she then started to turn to explain to Killian, thinking he might not have recognized them. But the look in his eye, the muscle tensing in his throat, put paid to that idea. He recognized them.

“Here’s what we’ll do.” Emma was surprised that her voice sounded so steady. “I’ll find a house in the village and hide you. They won’t be here for long; they’re planning a new wall to be built much further north, in Caledonia, and that was why my father sent for more men. For the love of the gods, stay out of sight. Once they’re gone, I’ll. . . I’ll find a way to take care of you.”

“If you say so, love.” His voice was carefully neutral, almost too much so, at odds with the deranged hatred stamped in every line of his face. “But if that miserable reptile comes within strangling distance, I’ll not be responsible for what I’ll do.”

“You have one hand. I’d reckon strangling out.”

“One less than what he left me with. He took me away from you, from our son – Emma, I – ”

“Last night you wanted to die. Now you want to blaze in there and try to kill Gaius Flavius Cassianus in front of the entire provincial government?” Emma’s voice rose sharply. “That is _not_ what I had in mind when I saved you. So you had damned well better listen to me.”

“As you wish, my lady,” he muttered, sounding only mildly seditious. He took a better grip on her waist, and she steered them down into the lowlands by the river, where they could enter the city unseen, through one of the back gates. They dismounted and crunched through the bracken, passed under the shadow of the walls, and into the steep, muddy street, Killian’s face hidden by Emma’s cloak, which she had donated for the purpose. Her work as a hunter had given her several contacts among the commoners, and she steered straight to the first one who came to mind: the widow Lucasia. She sold hot food in the marketplace and usually had a bed to offer travelers, and could be trusted to discretion. Aye, it would have to be her.

In a few moments more, they turned into the alley, and Emma knocked urgently until the widow answered. She managed to convey in short order that she needed Killian hid and hid well, and would pay well for the service. This offer was accepted without question, and she grabbed Killian by the arm, shoving him under the low doorway, eyes already glancing in every direction for anyone who might have followed them. “Stay here until I come back for you. _Promise.”_

He hesitated, then nodded. “Aye. I promise.”

“Good.” She fisted her hand in his dirty, ragged tunic and pulled him close for a brief, hard kiss, completely uncaring of the fact that Widow Lucasia was watching in shocked surprise (and perhaps a hint of jealousy). “Otherwise your hand is the least of what you’ll lose.”

With that, bracing herself, she turned away, mounted up, and rode uphill to the governor’s villa, overflowing with the fuss and pomp of its important visitors, and managed to slip through the throng almost unnoticed to her rooms. She shucked off her filthy clothes, then plunged shivering into the private bath that had been built for her, in imitation of the larger ones built at Aquae Sulis. Hers had to be heated by a slave and a fire, rather than the natural warmth of springs from the ground, and as that was presently not the case, it raised gooseflesh all over her body, shivering and splashing as she sifted the dirt off. Then she leapt out, fetched rosemary oil and a strigil (she had long gotten out of the habit of having a slave do it for her) and scraped her skin clean, then dressed. Had to look a proper Roman lady for the first time in years, calm and composed, simply twisting her hair back instead of styling it into an elaborate braided crown. Pinned her stola with a jeweled brooch, and stared into the dim smoky depths of her looking glass, heart pounding. Only a ghost and a near-stranger gazed back.

No more delaying it. She had ordered Henricus under pain of death to say that he had no idea where she was or what she was doing, if asked, but his presence here would already be enough of a novelty that they’d be paying special attention to him. As far as the world was concerned, he was still the orphaned son of Marius Victorus Maximinus and Rubinia, but she had already gathered that his leaving Rome was something of a scandal. It could only lead to questions, dangerous ones. A spiderweb of political intrigue drawing tighter and tighter.

Still feeling as if a hot lump of lead was lodged in her belly, Emma put on her smile and went out to greet the guests.

They were gathered in the solarium, her father seated magisterially at his writing desk, slaves circulating the room with cups of wine, a hum of elegant conversation, a crowd of consuls and praetors and commanders who had brought their legions all the way here to Eboracum; the soldiers themselves would be staying in far ruder accommodations than these. There were not many women in the room, aside from Maria Margareta presiding as lady of the house and a few of the captains who had brought their wives, apparently unwilling to endure a long parting. Emma teetered on the threshold, desperately tempted to make a run for it. Now, before anyone had –

“Mistress Aurelia. Truly, it has been too long.”

Too late.

“Cassianus.” Emma revolved smoothly on the spot, making sure to show her teeth when she smiled. “Indeed it has.”

Gold bowed precisely, kissing her hand. She resisted the urge to snatch it back from him, eyes skating desperately around the room in search of Henri. If Gold got a good look at him – he had never known, of course, about the child she’d borne, about any of that – but see Henri full-on, and he would be in no doubt. His resemblance to his father was simply too strong. While Emma did not know if his decade-and-a-half-long grudge against a slave would lead to his harming the slave’s son, she was in no haste whatsoever to find out. She would have married Gold’s son Baelius if not for what had happened with Killian, and with Baelius now many years dead, he must feel the insult still more keenly. Her mouth felt dry as paper as she tried to swallow.

“Hopefully you did not exert yourself unduly on our behalf,” Gold went on, eyes glittering. “When we arrived, we did so desire to pay our respects at once, but were told you were indisposed. Nothing serious, dearie?”

“Not at all.” Emma gave him another smile – demure, close-mouthed, dangerous. “Likewise, I hope your journey from Rome wasn’t too treacherous, surely?”

Gold shrugged. “Oh no. The empire has been made safer than ever, and no matter how far the barbarians and miscreants run, they cannot hide. Which is why it was so distressing, incidentally, to arrive at the port of Gesoriacum in Gaul, and hear that it had been sacked and burned by a band of cowardly pirates. Pirates who, if I have the tale aright, have caused all sorts of woe and misery from one Roman port to another.”

Emma carefully kept her face impassive. “Indeed.”

“We had a curious tale that they escaped into Britannia,” Gold went on. “That they are led by a man with a hook for a hand. A Celtic chief who speaks fluent Latin, is that not an unusual combination? And seems to bear a particular grudge against all things Roman as well. Would you not agree, that if such rumors were true, that every loyal citizen of the empire would have no greater duty than to hunt him down and be rid of him like the frothing dog he is?”

“Of course.”

“Especially if he was, say, known to have made a bargain in the past? A deal, shall we call it? That in exchange for his life and not a word breathed about what he had done to a certain wellborn daughter of the highest class, he would never molest Rome nor its interests again? Such a betrayal, well. . . would that not authorize the other party in the deal to pursue whatever reparations he saw fit?”

“Perhaps.” Emma’s lips felt stiff. She glanced around again, wondering if one of the slaves was going to appear with a drink. “Is this of any interest to me whatsoever beyond the ludicrously theoretical, Praetor? We do not need these riddles. I know very well of whom you imagine yourself to speak, and _you_ know very well that I have not seen or thought of him in years and cannot be held responsible for his actions. Once a barbarian, always a barbarian.”

Gold evaluated her with an approving little smile, raising his goblet in a mocking toast. “As we were traveling north, we – naturally – made call at each of the fortresses along Ermine Street. The garrison commanders were happy to acquaint us with rumors that a well-armed and fast-moving pirate band had been reported in the vicinity, and were prepared to track and capture if they were deemed any further threat. Their location and time of appearance was consistent with, as we previously hypothesized, they escaped from Gesoriacum after sacking it and made their way into Britannia. The borderlands of the Empire this land may be, Mistress Aurelia, but the eyes of the Eagle are not so blind as that. They were coming to Eboracum. Why?”

Emma bit the inside of her lip so hard that she tasted blood. “I told you. I have no notion.”

“Pity,” Gold mused. “There was _so_ much you could have told us, if you were feeling disposed. Especially if you wanted to prove your loyalty to Rome beyond all doubt. He sent you no message, did he? No word at all?”

“As I said.” Emma shrugged. “Whatever he suspects himself of doing is of no concern to me.”

“Not even if I was to – ”

And at that precise moment, that precise terrible moment, Henricus burst out of the crowd, flushed and eager. “Emma! Did you – did you find – ”

He bit back the rest of the words with a jolt as Emma stamped on his foot, but not quickly enough to escape Gold’s keen dark gaze. “Oh no, Mistress,” he said pleasantly. “By all means, let the boy speak. Did you find what?”

“Nothing.” Emma removed her slipper slowly, feeling cold and clammy, somehow managing to keep her smile stitched on. “I was out for a ride to survey the temperament of the local clansmen – I spy on them. They think I work for them and do their dirty little provincial business, while in truth I learn their secrets and their sedition and put it to more profitable uses.”

“Fascinating. You truly are a woman of many talents, Mistress. So good of you to let me know; I’ll be sure to ask your father about what advantages your intelligence can procure for us. No doubt you’ve shared it all with him? Dutiful daughter as you are?”

“Oh no,” Emma said swiftly. “You’d have to ask me.”

“And why would that be, dearie?”

“Because information comes at a price.” Again, she showed him her teeth. “And I certainly don’t give away what can be bought for gold. To _anyone._ ”

The man who had derived his nickname from just such a substance laughed out loud, in apparently genuine amusement and delight. “Not even to your own father? My, my. You’re turning adept at this game indeed. I do not know whether to be dismayed or delighted that a woman can hold no public office or influence in the Empire, for I suspect you’d be stabbing us all in the back with a smile and looking quite lovely while you do. Indeed.”

 _Damned right I would be._ A surge of hatred welled up in her throat, choking her again, but she swallowed it down with difficulty. Pressing her advantage, she moved in. “Well then, my lord. Who do you really want to bring down? One measly band of pirates, or one of the major tribes causing unrest in the countryside and presenting such a stumbling block to Emperor Antoninus’ plans? Wouldn’t that be of _far_ more use to the Empire, rather than one grubby decades-old personal vendetta? Don’t you think?”

“Perhaps.” Gold grinned. “At the moment, however, I am more interested in our young companion here. What’s your name, lad?”

Henri looked startled to be addressed. “Er – Marius Henricus Maximinus, my lord.”

“Maximinus? Ah, yes, I recall. Terrible tragedy what happened to your parents. You must miss them dreadfully.”

“Aye, my lord.” Henri swallowed. “Very much.”

“And so you risked the dangerous voyage all the way to Britannia, to find your – patroness?”

Henri hesitated, clearly sensing a trap but not sure how to evade it. “Aye, my lord.”

“You must be a woodsman and hunter to surpass them all, if you made it to Eboracum completely by yourself,” Gold went on. “And not on the road, otherwise I am sure that the Roman commanders I paid call on would have mentioned a highborn boy traveling alone. And to fight the barbarians who would have seen you as easy pickings – truly, boy, you must also be a warrior to sing of. You do the legions great disservice by depriving them of your presence, especially with the conquest of the tribes such a pressing matter.”

Sensing the mockery, the boy’s cheeks began to stain a dull red, and Emma, seething, cut in. “That’s enough. It’s of no importance. Leave him be, Gold, or you’ll wish you did.”

The reptile – Killian’s nickname for him had rarely seemed more accurate – made a slight, flourishing bow. “Of course. I meant no offense. Merely an investigation of this curious phenomenon. I, naturally, am not the only one with a concern in your welfare.”

“What – what do you mean?” Henri looked startled.

“He means me.”

Heads turned all at once, and Emma swallowed harder, not sure whether to be relieved or furtherly horrified, as her step-grandmother swept out from behind a column, arrayed as splendidly as if she had just come from a festival at the Forum; one would never know or guess that Regina Sabina Milia had been on the road for weeks. “I, of course,” Regina went on, “felt a pressing duty to ensure the welfare of my young ward, after he unwisely spurned my protection and escaped Rome. All sorts of things can happen to an unaccompanied boy on the road.”

“I wasn’t unaccompanied,” Henri sputtered, looking almost as floored as Emma felt. “I – I was with the traders. They took me here.”

“The traders who never reached Londinium, you mean? Far less Eboracum? Yes, Robin told me all about that. Fit of guilt, I suppose.” Regina smiled. “Oh, he came as well. The legionnaire commanders were uncertain if he could be trusted to be back in his native land and not pass information to the rebels, but I personally vouched for his trustworthiness and told him that if they laid a hand on him, they’d pay and pay dearly. So then, Henricus. All three of us are fascinated to hear your tale. How on earth did you get here?”

“It’s of no matter,” Emma repeated, feeling very much as if she was about to be sick. Regina had been on her side in the past, had professed her undying hatred for Gold and her delight in thwarting all his plans; had helped her and Killian escape to Terracina. But that was a long time ago, and she had always known how dangerous the older woman could be, at once both Cleopatra and the asp that had bitten her breast. “Henri, you don’t have to answer, this is ridiculous, you – ”

Regina’s dark crimson lips widened in their smile. Gold looked mildly amused. “Indeed,” he said after a moment. “How dreadfully discourteous of us, especially when our time could be far better spent. If I order my men to conduct a thorough search of this town, from the grandest villa to the filthiest pisspot hovel, who knows what intriguing items we could turn up instead?”

“No,” Emma interrupted. Too fast, no way to play it off as innocuous. A mistake, a bad one. She felt it twist sharp in her heart. Another deep breath, another fixed smile. “Don’t you remember the bargain I was offering? Information on the tribes?”

“I do recall it, Mistress Aurelia, very well. But I also wonder why you would feel the need to offer it at all, if there was not something else you thought I might want more.” Gold turned to the guard who had appeared, silent as a specter, at his shoulder. “Search the town.”

The guard bowed, touching two fingers to his forehead, and turned away. Called to his men, mustering them to proceed, as Emma waited as long as she humanely thought she could, to be sure they were away, and would not see her, would not catch her. Then she ran.

\--------------

She reached the widow Lucasia’s a few streets ahead of the guards, hammered frantically on the door until it opened, and tumbled through. She managed to pant out a largely incoherent explanation, which (bless her) the formidable old widow understood at once. Both of them hurried into the dim low bedroom where Killian was laid up, tossed a blanket over him, and hauled him (still unconscious) into the root cellar. They had barely stashed him among the barrels and hanging thatches of vegetables when they heard a distant pounding on the door. “Open up, under the authority of the Roman Emperor!”

“Stay here,” Widow Lucasia whispered fiercely to Emma, and climbed out, slamming the grate heavily behind her.

They were plunged into a thick, stifling darkness. She sat tensely, straining her ears, until she heard Killian stir groggily, understandably exceedingly confused. “Swan?”

“Shh,” she hissed, reaching out to fumble for his hand. She pressed it to her chest, heart pounding, listening to footsteps crisscrossing and creaking on the floor above and angry male voices demanding the widow to turn out her trunks and chest. The widow was protesting, calling them robbers, fools, imbeciles, harassing an old lady just trying to do her business, sell her goods and pay her tax (she made sure they were good and damn well aware of her displeasure at just how much). She, as a Roman subject, had plenty to say about it, and would be complaining to the governor directly. She intimated that this was something which she did often (she did, through Emma, who brought her suggestions to her father sometimes under the guise of rumor) and that they should be very afraid of what would transpire if she did.

At last, by the sounds of things, the doughty old lady simply annoyed the soldiers into submission. Emma could hear them leaving with grumbled complaints, until the house went silent again and the grate creaked up. “We’re safe,” the widow whispered. “Up with you.”

Killian was awake enough to protest that he could manage by himself, then promptly gave the lie to it by collapsing against Emma. She rolled her eyes, but sneaked a quick kiss to his tousled hair as they manhandled him back into bed and pulled the covers up. She stood there for a long moment, looking at him, then took a deep breath and turned away. “Thank you. I’ll – I’ll be back soon. I don’t know how long this will be.”

With the widow again promising that it was nothing, Emma pulled up her hood and stepped out. It was getting dark, the moon rising in ghostly silver over the dark buildings of Eboracum, the fey moorlands stretching wide and wild beyond. She breathed it in, hungering for freedom ever more acutely. For a place, for safety. For –

“Emma?” a voice said tremulously. A pause. “M-Mother?”

“Henricus!” She whipped around, hand pressed to her heart. “What are you _doing_ here?”

He looked abashed. “I saw you leave, and I was worried. I thought you might be on your way toward finding – well – him. So I followed you.”

“Henri. . . you should. . . you should _not_ be out alone. It’s much too dangerous. Besides – what if someone saw you?” She grabbed his shoulder hard, steering him along. “Come. Now.”

“It’s all right,” Henri protested, trotting to keep up. “No one saw me, I promise. I just – ”

A low, dark laugh came from the shadows at the end of the alleyway. Just as it had that hot night in Rome so many years ago. The same, the very same. “Oh, laddie,” said Gaius Flavius Cassianus, and stepped out. “Someone did.”


	6. Chapter 6

There was no space, no room, no chance for anything in Emma's head but pure, instinctive reaction. She dove for Henricus as if she'd seen a deadly viper, shoving him behind her so hard that he stumbled, clutching at her arm, but she knew what had happened the last time Gold had confronted her in the darkness, and was not, was _not,_ letting history repeat itself. She pulled the bone-handled knife from her riding leathers, fingers clenching white on the hilt as she pointed it at him, dead level, voice cold and hard as stone. "Get away from us."

Gold appeared mildly surprised, but not unduly discomfited. "Mistress Aurelia. We are all civilized people here, and moreover, I can summon in an instant any number of soldiers as to make your efforts quite irrelevant. So why don't you put it down, and we can have a chat?"

"No." Emma kept her grip on the knife, trying to judge the distance – if she could lunge across the alley and cut his throat before he had time to call for his legions. And then what? Be responsible for having murdered the proconsul and commander of all the imperial forces moving into Britain, send to ruins Emperor Antoninus' entire plan of conquest in Caledonia? Dragged back to Rome in chains, condemned to death, a fate from which even her father's influence would not save her. At the moment, she was just unhinged enough to consider it, the only way to protect her men and herself from the baneful shadow of the past that stood a few steps away, watching her and her son from hooded eyes. She wondered how old he was; he had always seemed immortal, indestructible, with only a few more threads of silver in his hair than when she'd met him thirteen years ago. Growing more powerful and more silken and more ruthless all the while. There was talk that he'd had a wife once, Baelius' mother, dead in mysterious circumstances, and then another woman, brought as hostage from Gaul, who had started out as his servant but eventually become his lover. Was that why he was pursuing her so vengefully? The woman was dead, did he refuse to see anyone else happy with a slave, now that she was gone? Emma struggled for the words, trying to think how to reach him. Anything to keep his mind off Killian, still hidden, in no state to run. Gold could destroy them all right here.

Carefully, keeping her hands in view, she sheathed the knife. "Fine," she said. "Let's talk. But I'm going to ask the questions."

"Are you?" Gold leaned back against the wall. "In the middle of the street?"

"You chose the ground. You have no right to change it now." Keeping Henricus behind her, Emma edged around to face him. "It's been almost thirteen years. I want an answer. _Why?"_

"Why?" Gold parried, raising an eyebrow. "Have you forgotten how you disgraced my house, my name, my son with that slave, broke the betrothal and sent him to die? No one plays the game against me in such a fashion and walks away, _no one!"_

"I'm sorry about Baelius." Emma took a deep, unsteady breath. "Truly. But I did not kill him. I never meant what happened to him to happen."

"If he'd married you and stayed in Rome, rather than taking that posting on the frontier after you dishonored us, he'd still be alive." Gold's fist opened and closed convulsively, as if reaching out to grasp the vanished memory of his son. "His blood is on your hands. And now that boy – " he jerked his head at Henricus – "that boy should be _my_ grandson, the future of my house. Now I've helped build the greatest empire under the sun, etched my name into its history – for what? There's nothing left. Nothing of my line after I die. And it is because of _you._ Tell me again, then, Mistress Aurelia, how I have no right to my vengeance?"

"What's it going to solve?" Emma's heart was hammering, but she kept staring him down. "I never had my son either. I gave him up when he was born, I can't even acknowledge him as mine now – I know you lost yours, but so did I."

"No." Gold's voice was cool and bleak. "No, you didn't. Not enough. There he is, standing next to you. The slave's face staring back at me. And so, once more, I've come to offer you a deal."

"Have you?"

"Yes." The thin mouth twisted. "Give the boy to me. I will designate him my heir, inheritor of all my worldly goods, a life far better than any he could have dreamt of, teach him all I know. He will rise high in the emperor's court, have armies and senators and consuls at his command. I will leave you and even the pirate in peace – though if he shows his face again or attacks any Roman territory, I will burn down the entire world to find him. You are still a young woman, Mistress Aurelia. You can have more children. I trust you will feel no loss for this one – as you point out, you abandoned him many years ago."

Both Henri and Emma started to speak at once, then stopped. It was Emma who finally recovered. "We made a deal before," she said. "You swore to it, and – "

"And I kept it," Gold interrupted. "You were not married to Baelius, were you? The slave was allowed to go free with his life, into exile in Hibernia. Now we are making a new one."

"Or?"

The twist spread into a smile, utterly without mirth. "Do I really need to answer that? You owe me a son for the one you took from me. You owe me that child's life."

Emma kept a hand on Henri's shoulder, digging her fingers in so tightly that she must be hurting him. "Tell me, Cassianus," she said. "If you had the chance to go back in time, to the day Baelius left for Gaul – knowing what awaited him there, knowing that it might destroy your life if he stayed – would you still choose to let him go?"

Gold stared at her. "No," he said, as if unable to believe her simplicity. "No, I never would."

"Then." Emma's pulse felt short and sharp in her throat, the world closing in around her. "Then you understand why I must choose the same."

"You don't want to defy me." Gold's eyes had turned to slits. "You don't want to make this choice. You know what I can do to you and everyone you love, you know that I – "

All at once, he stopped, his gaze flicking over her left shoulder. From his expression, Emma knew immediately what he had seen, _who_ he had seen, and she felt her heart, previously running so hard and fast, nearly stop. It took only a quick turn of her head to see what Gold did: Killian standing in the shadows, bracing himself upright with his stump, a sword in his hand, as he advanced with measured, menacing slowness – as much not to collapse as to impress upon the other man the import of his presence. "You, crocodile," he rasped. "Get out before I kill you."

"I was wondering if you might choose to join us." Gold's urbane sleekness, cracked and roughened as he spoke of his son, was back in an instant. "You're not truly the sort to hide down bolt-holes while women defend you. But for that matter, it might have been better if you did."

"Why?"

"Do you want to force her to watch you die? You've put her through enough."

"Aye. I have. Not nearly as much as what you have." Killian limped to a halt in front of Emma and Henri, shielding them both with his body, the trembling in his shoulders visible even in the dim moonlight. "You don't get to take any more from us. Get out."

"I don't think I will." Gold raised a hand. "Shall I call for my men? With a pirate captain as notorious as you, I don't expect we'd see the need to waste the Roman courts' time with a trial. Cut you down here like the barbarian you are, and have that be the end."

"No!" This time, it was Henri who spoke, edging out from behind the protective aegis of his parents, moving into the no-man's-land between them and Gold. Tears were shining on his cheeks. "I don't," he said helplessly. "I – my father and mother, Marius Victorus and Rubinia – I already had to watch them die. I don't want that again. I can't. I'll – I'll go with you."

"Henri," Killian and Emma started at once, desperately. "Henri – "

"I'm sorry, Emma." He looked back at her with eyes the blue of Killian's, who was staring back at him, just as transfixed. "But this is what heroes have to do. They have to sacrifice themselves for everyone else. At least I got to know you. The truth. I'm glad for that."

 _"Henri –_ _"_

His lip quivered as he tried to smile. "I won't forget you."

And with that, he set his shoulders. Stepped past both of them to Gold, who was waiting. Didn't look back. Started to walk. The two of them, side by side down the alley and into the shadows, like a dream that had been short and sweet and over, like the breath Emma had taken for the first time on seeing Henri reappear in her life had finally run out. _False hope is worse than no hope at all._ For these few days, she'd half thought she might find again what she'd lost. Be his mother, after all those empty years feeling the hole where he had been. But no. Not even that. Not even.

A dull buzzing filled her ears. She was still standing upright, for the moment, but then she wasn't, folding slowly to her knees. Not making a sound, not doing anything, hands on the muddy ground, grasping at it, grasping, but still falling, as it slid out from beneath her fingers and spun down, down, down, until it was only darkness, and only silence.

* * *

Emma had no notion how long she remained there, wordless, motionless, vaguely aware of someone pulling at her shoulder. Until all at once it burned through her like gall, and standing it the way it was any longer was impossible, and all she knew was that she had to get her son back or die trying. It wasn't ending like this. Not now. Not after everything.

Uncoordinated as a drunkard, she lurched to her feet. Found Killian's hand reaching for her, grabbed it by reflex, pulling on his arm. "You," she said. "Get back."

"I'm not going anywhere." His fingers remained closed on her wrist. "You bloody dragged me back from the abyss when I would much rather have died. I hope you don't expect you were doing it for a lark. I'm coming with you."

"No." She wasn't thinking straight, could see this night and the other mingled in her head, his blood in the dirt pouring from a maimed wrist. After what had happened to Killian first, and now Henri – just the thought of having to endure that again, in any form – "Go away."

"Damn it, Emma!" He jerked her again, hard enough to drag her to a halt. "He's my son as well! And I hate Cassianus just as much as you do, if not bloody more! I'm not letting that bastard take anything else from me. Not the boy, not my other hand, not you. I'll stroll straight into your father's fucking solarium and introduce myself, suffer every penalty they want to hand down, if that's what it takes. I'm not going to hide a moment more. Now if you're not of a mind to let me come along, you'd best go ahead and kill me right here. Your choice, love. But we're not playing by his twisted games and deals any longer. We're getting back what he's stolen."

Emma glared at him, shaken by his response but braced by it as well, as if she had just surfaced from a deep dark dive and drawn a lungful of pure sharp air. "I can't guarantee your safety," she said at last, weakly. "I'll do what I can, but – "

"That will be enough." He was gripping her around the waist, with a hard, feverish strength. "Trust me, Swan. Trust _you."_

Her eyelashes fluttered, tempting her toward weakness with his mouth and his face and his heart and his warmth so close, how easy it had been to break down in his arms in that first mad instant of seeing each other after so many years, and how impossibly, unbearably difficult it felt now. She pushed away. "No. If you come, you'll walk into the middle of the governor's villa as Britannia's most wanted reprobate and criminal. I can't let you – "

"It'll be an entrance, at least." His mouth twitched. A light fog had glazed over the night, pebbling the muddy streets with a chill mist, a rain to wash them both clean. His voice was unutterably tender, so that beneath the blackened, badly wounded, bitter husk of the feared pirate captain and the slave gladiator alike, the tough and vicious and violent creature he was, she could see nothing but him, Killian mac Dáithí, bare to her as ever. Despite everything, here. Real. Breathing. No more than a man of flesh and blood, and yet so very much more.

A small, painful smile turned up the corner of her mouth as well. She beckoned to him, and began to walk.

* * *

By the time they reached the top of the hill and the Aurelius villa, the drizzle had deepened to a full-throated downpour, making them tilt almost sideways as they struggled through the mud to the gate, looking verily like the drowned men invariably fished out of the Tiber after any of Rome's numerous festivals celebrating the fruit of the vine, hair plastered flat to their heads and eyes screwed up, boots sloshing. Emma hammered on the postern, hissing curses, until she abruptly got it to give and she and Killian stumbled through, directly into another puddle spilled from the overflowing cistern that fed the house aqueduct. But since neither of them could get wetter, they scarcely noticed, breathing in great deep gulps of the waterlogged dark green-smelling summer night, as the moon's horn cut through the tattered clouds like Diana's arrow, an impossibly, incongruously living, witching, breathing glow falling over the courtyard and both of them. In this light, Killian looked like a selkie, one of the fey creatures said to inhabit these isles. Sleek dark seals who came ashore, slipped their skin to turn into humans, and could be prevented from returning to the sea if you could find the skin and hide it. Emma remembered that if a man hid a selkie-woman's skin, she must marry him. She had never had cause to wonder if the reverse was true – that was, perhaps, until now.

She held out a hand to Killian, and he took it. Ducked after her into the dimness of the colonnaded walkway, the eaves dripping, their soft footsteps on the tile barely audible over the rush, as she led him through the villa to her rooms, and shut and barred the door behind them – cutting some of the sound of the rain, but none of the damp. Some servant had helpfully left the lamp lit, casting an inviting glow over the shadows of trunk and bed and window; she kept little else, lived as sparsely as a recluse, her things from her bounty-hunting hidden where no one would accidentally happen upon them. She struggled to remember if anyone, in fact, had ever been in here, save herself. It was hers, her fortress, her oasis, away from the tedious business of the Roman provincial government and her dangerous double life alike. Inside her walls. Her own island, in this place where she had existed but not lived for so long.

Emma turned to Killian, intending to say something banal, anything – but the words died in her throat as she took in the expression on his face. He was standing dumbstruck, transfixed, making no pretense of doing anything apart from exactly what he was: gulping up the sight of her, ravishing her with his eyes, as she stood dripping in the lamplight, long hair hanging in wet white-golden tangles, clothes molded to the slender lines of her body, water pooling around her feet like a siren risen from the deep. But Killian had neither beeswax in his ears nor a mast to be tied to, Ulysses with no defense, helpless before whatever enchantment Circe should choose to cast. So too had she stood like Dido on the shore, those long years before, watching Aeneas set sail into the sunrise, never to return. And hence she had burned, burned to ashes and embers, burned until she thought she could no longer stand it, and yet she had no perished.

Rain quenches fire. Raises up green from the earth.

Life goes on.

The silence was tremendous. Emma did not remember either of them being the first to move, and yet then there they were, only a foot from each other, close enough to reach tentatively over the depthless abyss that still yawned beneath their feet. No, Emma thought numbly. Not as much Dido, left behind, but rather Persephone venturing into the underworld, step by step toward a great transcendent darkness where she ruled as queen, with lips bright as pomegranate seeds, where her soul would always and forever truly belong, no matter if she should sometimes return to the light. A relief so deep as to almost make her break, that with every breath she took she should know it so: _Home. Home. Home._

This time, it _was_ her who moved first. She raised a hand and brushed it gently along Killian's uninjured shoulder, a touch as light as a feather but still one to make him suck in his breath – not pain, but in pure astonishment. She lifted the other hand and ran it down his arm, the wet bandages still crusted with dried blood, where she had in fact from sheer stubbornness and some small skill, simply refused to let him die. But if he was hurting now, he must not have known nor felt a thing. He stood absolutely still under her touch, like someone close to a wild animal that might at any moment bolt, as if she would turn into the nickname he had given her, spread white swan wings and fly away never to return.

Yet she didn't. Moved closer, taking her time, tracing the lines of him, hard knotted muscle and the silvery filaments of countless scars. The dark hair of his chest, the rugged carving of his stomach, the long clean verge of his spine, the breadth of his shoulders. She'd dreamt it all a thousand times, saving those memories of their one precious night together in Terracina, but they had become worn and used and grey, as much pain as pleasure to finger through. But this – here, real, new – there were no words, no defenses. Only need.

At last, she slipped closer, into the orbit of him, letting him rest his stump on the small of her back, his breathing turning shorter and more ragged in her ear. But he still did not move, waiting, letting her decide every inch of it, every small shift of movement. They were entwined almost at full length now as she clung to the solidness of him, a rock such as the one that stood at the gates of Africa. Her fingers slipped up into his soaking dark hair, around the point of his ear, their breath mingling, warm as steam on her rain-chilled skin. She brought their foreheads to rest, eyes closed, and then, slowly, their lips.

Killian grunted, his good hand coming up to tangle into her hair. Pressed her head to his, their mouths open, drinking each other in, soft deep sounds of hungry desperate kissing, as their stringent self-control began to evaporate and they thrust in, devouring each other, tongues and teeth and lips working and musing, feinting in and drawing back as if at swordplay, exploring wet heat and dark hollows, his mouth breaking from hers to lay a chain of kisses around her throat like jewels, nipping at the pulse hammering in her collarbone, and then rising back up along neck and jaw, forehead, cheeks, nose, bathing her in fierce, fierce love, as if to hunt away the demons of all those empty years. She whimpered, fisted a hand in his wet rags, and pulled him across the floor to her bed.

They tumbled onto the low cushions together, him on top of her, as she was careful that he not take his weight on his wounded shoulder. She wrapped both arms around his neck, delirious with the simple joy of kissing him, but increasingly aware that it was not enough, caught up and swept away in the great primal power of need and grief and want, old as time or man and woman themselves, far beyond her grasp. She arched her hips, could feel the pressure of his hardness through the thin wet cloth, burning into her. Got hold of his hand and guided it between her legs, his callused fingers skimming rough over the smooth skin of her upper thigh – then higher still, into her, as slick and wet and alive as the night itself, as them, as every breath they took.

Killian grunted again, fingers moving as delicately as if to play a plectrum, curling with a steady, maddening, delightful friction into her, as she gasped and her legs jerked apart, twisting around him. He ghosted his thumb over her nub, setting off a heady, wild rush of pleasure, and then with a few more deft strokes had her blooming like a night flower, clenching hard around his fingers as she came in short shudders. He leaned down to kiss her stomach, the slope of her mound, tongue laving a stripe down her skin, touching her lower lips in the sensual mirror of a kiss. Then he slid his wet fingers out of her, swiped them on the cover, and leaned back in to attend to her breasts, half-out of the clinging garments, nipples stiffening to peaks under his gentle, alternating touch. "Danu," he muttered, agonized. "Danu, there's nothing I'd not give for two hands."

Breathless, still seeing white, Emma reached for the lacings of his dirty leather braies, which she felt he might have some trouble managing in their damp, hopelessly knotted state with one. She nearly tore them in her impatience, freeing him from what had indisputably become a most uncomfortably tight fit, and closed her hand around the silky, pulsing hardness of him, sweet and heavy in her palm, curling her thumb around the tip as he began to swear in Gaelic, which it was just as well not to understand. She lifted her hips again, guiding him down, strangers in paradise become strangers no more, into her raw, open, rain-wet core. With half a thrust, and then another, he took her to the hilt, throwing her flat on the bed.

They lay there, entangled and gasping, for a mesmerizing moment, one Emma knew she would remember for the rest of her life, even if everything else should fade away. Neither of them uttered a word, both well beyond the power of speech, but their bodies more than made up the lack, whispering to each other, murmuring, finding out the best of the other, as he began to move, artless and graceless and with nothing but impossible, unquenchable need. Deep and powerful and elemental as the thunderstorm still battering down outside, a faint susurrus on the roof, in time to their moans and mews. Emma's body arched like a bow, welcoming him, pulling him deeper, rasping him on every deprived sinew of her, a rough thick thrust into her, stretching her, driving her so that she could not even think of looking back, could only plunge deeper into the wilderness with him. She too was swearing now, not in Latin or Brythonic or anything else, but some wordless, original language of sex and possession, pulling the lobe of his ear between her teeth, marking him, biting him, branding him as he was her, after long, after too very, very long. _Mine. Mine. Mine._

She was already slipping over the edge, the glow of her last orgasm not entirely gone as the heat of a new one began to build, her breath stuttering in her throat in time to the savage rhythm of his thrusts, bracing her heels, rising up under him, a battle as hard as any she had ever watched him fight, her fingernails striping his back, his body slamming down, eyes closed, both of them locked in a trance too deep to shatter by anything except completion, anything except the end. Her wax wings had melted. The sun was too near and too bright and too consuming, and she fell.

Somewhere far away, she heard Killian snarl, _"Emma,"_ in a voice not his, half a demon's, half a god's, and grip her with hand and stump as he lost himself as well, as they tumbled out of the hot white sky together, and into the depths of the trackless sea. Molding them together, annealing them under the blows of the smith's hammer, fused into a new creature, neither him nor her but _them,_ Hermes and Aphrodite together – no boundary, no separation, no more pain. After years and years bearing it like a red-hot iron in her chest, dulled to leaden weight, to feel it go, to feel it burn away, was nothing short of miraculous. And soundless, wracked, shaking, curled in his arms and under him and him in her and the circle beginning and ending and beginning again, made new, beyond all hope and beyond all grace, she sobbed.

* * *

They must have simply passed out after that. Shattered, wrung out, exhausted, emptied, broken, forged hot and new, they slept the utter dreamless sleep of the dead and awoke sometime early, just past dawn, in the clean-washed grey light of the first day of the rest of their lives. Lay without speaking among the twisted cushions and coverlets, smelling of salt and seed and sleep, in each other's arms, listening to each other's heartbeat. Then at last, slowly, bonelessly, Emma sat up.

"Come on," she said, her voice hoarse and deep, queerly disembodied, forced through her parched throat. "It's time to save our son."


	7. Chapter 7

The sun was coming up over Eboracum, spilling over the steep shoulders of the city, as Emma and Killian walked together, side by side, up the street, both fully dressed and armed – Emma in her fur and leather and the bow she’d learned to use in her time hunting for the clans in her hand, a quiver of onyx-tipped arrows strapped to her back, and Killian in his full splendor as a barbarian Celtic chief, face painted blue and sword riding low on his hip. He was still favoring his bad arm, but his hook was sharpened fresh, sparkling from the whetstone, and small bits of amber were braided into his hair and beard, casting a strange, unnerving golden gleam, almost leonine, into his eyes when the breaking dawn caught them. Emma suspected he knew the effect quite well, planned to use it to its full purpose on Gold, the man who had set the lions on them in every way that mattered, from the moment Killian had first come to Rome as a slave gladiator. A sordid, bloody history lay unmended, raw with years and years, and Gold had made his last mistake by taking Henricus. Now, at last, this ended.

Gold, Emma knew, would be staying in the proconsul’s villa, on the opposite side of the city from the governor’s residence, and indeed they could see his standard flying over it. She had briefly feared that he would have taken Henri and absconded straight back to Rome, coup completed, but of course the conquest of Caledonia was too personal to him, and to the Emperor, for him to be spotted sneaking out in such dishonor. She had been counting on his pride to keep him close, and for once, it was so.

They reached the gates, closed and barred, towering overhead at a height of twelve or fifteen feet – which in other circumstances they might have been able to scale, but not with Killian’s arm. Emma cupped her hands around her mouth and bellowed, _“AVE!”_

A moment, and then the crested helmet of a legionnaire appeared over the parapets, the golden emblem of an eagle resting on his breastplate. Apparently it was true, then. Gold, still smarting over the loss of the Ninth, had decided to re-form them and march them back here for a second crack at the business, so that nobody would be able to say that the wild brigands of Britannia had been able to permanently overmatch Roman power. He stared down at the two representatives of such ill-mannered rebellion with a queasy look on his face, apparently not recognizing them. “The devil do you want?”

“Open the gates,” Killian said. “We’re here to visit the proconsul.”

The legionnaire blinked, having obviously not expected this wild-looking man to address him in fluent, sarcastic Latin. But then his eyes flickered to the hook, and Emma could see the conclusion forming on his face. Anyone in Gold’s pay for even a brief amount of time would know about his great rival, the pirate captain with a hook for a hand who had terrorized Roman settlements across Gaul and Britannia alike, whose vengeance had long been so terribly personal. As the legionnaire opened his mouth, doubtless to shout for his fellows, Emma slammed an arrow to her bow, drew the string back to her ear with a creak, and trained it dead on his face, the small bit of exposed flesh between noseplate and gorget. “Don’t,” she said pleasantly. “Not a wise idea at all.”

Hearing her speak, recognition finally clicked over. “Emma? _Emma Aurelia?”_

“It’s good to be remembered. Let us in.”

“Are you here on a warrant from your father?”

“No,” Emma said. “On my own. Open the gate.”

The legionnaire hesitated, clearly judging the odds of sounding the alarm and fighting them off, and if it would be worth the no end of trouble it would cause for Gold’s purposes in Eboracum if they accidentally killed the governor’s daughter. It was clear he was reluctant to order this expedient, but also had no intention of admitting a pair of dangerous miscreants into the premises at the crack of dawn. “If you will disarm and swear oaths to Jupiter and Roma that you mean no harm, you may enter.”

With that, he disappeared from the parapet, and they waited in tense silence until the postern gate rattled. Emma and Killian more or less compliantly stripped themselves of their weapons, but Killian would not relinquish his hook, and the legionnaires finally thought the better of pressing the matter. They stepped into the courtyard, were informed that the proconsul was bathing and would see them at his leisure, and then quite alarmed when Killian shoved aside the guards and stormed down the cloisters toward the _thermae._ Emma looked at them, shrugged, said, “He’s a barbarian, how do you expect me to control him?” and then ran after him.

Like most of the public Roman baths, the private ones of the consul’s residence were built to the tripartite plan of _caldarium,_ _tepidarium_ , and _frigidarium_ , the hot, warm, and cold waters in which immersion was considered necessary for the maintenance of health and virility. Back in Rome, they would have been crowded with other important men, as business of every kind commonly took place among the steam of the soaking pools, but here it was only Gold, sitting up to his neck in the bubbling water and looking blissful, an expression which immediately blackened as he heard their footsteps. The only attendant was a slave, preparing the oil which would be scraped across his body with a strigil, and as his eyes popped open to discern the nature of the disturbance, they instead narrowed into lethal slits. “I don’t recall ordering the rubbish to be brought _inside._ It is, after all, more customarily dumped outside in the street.”

“Oh, crocodile. You’ve done that, time and again.” Killian strode up to the edge of the baths, muddy boots clumping on the tiled white stone, so that Gold was obliged to scull away from the edge and twist around to face them. “Where’s our son?”

“I realize you are dismally unintelligent even by the standards of the barbarians, but if you recall, I took him into my custody just yesterday. There was a whole conversation. Surely even you have not forgotten it so swiftly.” Gold stood up, water swirling around his waist. “Unless, of course, you have just come here to wash? Though for someone as filthy as you, jumping in my healthful springs. . . I think I forbid it, alas. Simply too much contamination.”

Killian grinned, surprisingly white in his dark face. “You think you’re so clever. Bandying words and playing about and slinging insults. Well, hear me, Cassianus. You’re not the only one who can make deals. Give us Henricus back, and I will call off my attacks. I know many of the Brythonic tribes, outside my own band of pirates. I have more influence here than you could ever dream of. You might find it difficult to conquer Caledonia if you are constantly distracted by smaller assaults, wouldn’t you think? Even with the reformed Ninth. Think about it.”

Gold shook his head. “Fair try, Captain, but nothing I am interested in. I’ve told you time and time again, Romans do not deal with savages. We kill savages. Your bastard is mine, and will remain that way. Now that you have broken the terms by returning to my presence, well. . .” He shrugged, glanced over Killian’s shoulder, and raised a hand. “My promise of your safety is forfeit. So sorry.”

 _“Killian!”_ Emma screamed, flattening him to the stone floor, just as a dozen fully armed legionnaires charged into the _thermae,_ shortswords drawn, and went for them. Disarmed, the two of them against the ruthlessly well-trained Roman soldiers, they were at a terrible disadvantage, even as he rolled around and caught the first blow on his hook, twisting the blade out of its owner’s hand. There followed a period of immense, clattering confusion, several large splashes, and violent billows of steam as the slaves in the furnace below evidently misinterpreted the noise as a signal to stoke the fires higher. Someone caught Emma by the cloak, dragging her backwards, and the next second she was underwater, choking and twisting, as the legionnaire who had hold of her tried to keep her under long enough to drown her; evidently, all concerns about offending David Aurelius had gone out the metaphorical window. But she kicked and thrashed, managing to strike a blow hard enough to knock her attacker away, and burst to the surface, gasping. She could feel her skin starting to blister in the hot water, especially as the slaves kept pumping scalding steam in, and dragged herself to the far side, gasping through bruised lungs as she managed to haul out. Grabbed the strigil from the dumbstruck body slave, it being the only thing that looked remotely like a weapon, and went straight for Gold.

Killian was fighting off three or four legionnaires with his bare hands, blood starting to show wet and crimson on the shoulder of his tunic, and she knew he couldn’t keep this up for much longer. She yanked off her sodden cloak, shucked her boots, and dove back into the pool, ignoring the heat as she swam grimly for the proconsul. He could see her coming and tried to get away, but his exit was blocked by the struggling men on the far side, and she was relentlessly boxing him in. So he feinted and twisted, jumped up on the stone, and sprinted outright for the frigidarium at the far side of the room. There was a passage there that led to the apodyterium, the antechamber where undressing and dressing took place, and if he got away one more time –

Emma clawed out after him, dripping, bare feet slapping wet on the stone as she threw everything she was, all of her anger, all of her betrayal, all the years he had ruined her life and everything he had taken from her, into a dead-out sprint. Reached him just before he could reach the passage, and tackled them both sideways into the frigidarium with an almighty splash.

The cold punched her breath straight out of her, momentarily stunning her, and she felt Gold wriggling, trying to get away and nearly succeeding, until she got a better hold of him, wrapped her arm around his chest, and curved the edge of the strigil under his chin with her other hand. It wasn’t sharp enough to cut his throat, but it made her point admirably as she kicked and forced and struggled across the pool to the far side. _“Stop!”_ she yelled, voice ringing and echoing in the high stone arches. _“Stop, or I’ll kill him!”_

The writhing mass of Killian and the legionnaires abruptly fell to a halt, disentangling themselves from a pile of bodies and fists as they all took in her position. Gold himself was preternaturally still, not struggling, as Emma pinioned him mercilessly in place. Her blood was singing and thumping, roaring in her ears, begging her to murder him now – but she couldn’t, she couldn’t. Not if she wanted any hope of escaping this with her life, any chance of a future with Killian and Henri, that mad, impossible dream. And she had come too far now. The Fates’ thread to her old life was cut, and there was only the open road before her.

“Valerius,” Gold said, addressing one of the guards. “If you could – please fetch – young Henricus?”

The guard, after goggling around at the scene of total chaos, hesitated a moment, but when Gold repeated his order in a sharper tone, bowed and strode out. He returned shortly with Henri, who looked as if he had just woken up, and was just as aghast to see what awaited. _“Mother?”_ he blurted out, staring. “K – _Killian?”_

His father flashed a twisted smile. “Good morning, lad.”

“What are you doing here?” Henri cried. “I said I didn’t want to see you die, I couldn’t – not after Marius Victorius and Rubinia, that was what a hero had to do, give himself up – ”

“We’re rescuing you,” Killian said hoarsely. Emma could see his eyes devouring his son from head to toe, taking in every bit of face and form that was so like his. “At least, that was. . . that was the plan.”

Henri kept blinking, but Emma could see a terrible hope starting to catch fire in his eyes. He bit his lip, clearly conscious of their delicate position, as Gold said, “Very well. How about we, then, ask _Henricus_ what should be made of this entire miserable situation. Henri, lad. I know how much you have always wanted to be a great Roman citizen, a pillar of service to the empire, a name to be remembered down the annals of our time. I can give you that. You come with me, and you will be everything you wanted, everything you were raised for. Or you can go live in the wilds of Caledonia with your pirate father and your traitor mother, an outcast to everything and everyone you have ever known, a betrayal of all we stand for, an enemy of Rome. Is that really what you want, boy?”

Henri flinched. Emma could see the indecision on his face, the fear of being a disappointment, and the inability of a thirteen-year-old boy to casually forsake his world and everything he had known of it. He had been raised since birth to lead exactly the life Gold was offering him, had not ever known or been willing to believe that he was in fact the bastard son of a Celtic slave gladiator instead of the respected plebeian Marius Victorius Maximinus – until now. That his birth had been the scandal to destroy Emma’s life and ultimately lead all three of them here to a _thermae_ in Eboracum in the middle of summer, life and death and destiny hanging in the balance.

“Let me be quite clear,” Gold went on, eyes sparkling with malice. “You three will be free to leave together, to live whatever grubby future you envision in the wild. But there will be no place for you in Rome or any of her territories, ever again. A _damnatio memoriae_ will be enacted on your names. They will not be spoken of, nor heard, nor remembered, or taught. Your parents, Mistress Aurelia, will be told that you deserted in treason and infamy – which indeed, as all can see here and will readily attest, is the truth. And _when_ we conquer Caledonia, as is only a matter of time, you will be dragged in chains to the Coliseum and fed to lions, one by one. All you are doing, Henricus, is buying yourself and your wretched parents a few years. Do you really want that?”

Henri hesitated, eyes flicking to Emma and Killian. “I. . . I don’t know. Proconsul, please – ”

“That is the choice.” Gold’s voice was sleek and lethal as a serpent’s. “Make it.”

Silence reigned, towering over the baths even taller than the clouds of steam, the world coming down to whether Henri thought it was possible, even conceivable, to turn aside his destiny for the sake of the parents who had never known him, whom he had grown up away from, in comfort and in deception, in a palace of lies. How could he be blamed for turning his back on them, if it was readily arguable that they had on him? But they had had no choice. Had never been given it, except to decide what they could more readily stand to lose, and that had, down these long years, never included each other. Had existed without each other so long, but never lived.

Henri cleared his throat. “I don’t,” he said, small but steadily. “I don’t want to be like you.”

Gold was clearly caught off guard by that answer. “What in damnation do you mean, boy?”

“I don’t want to be like you,” Henri repeated. “If being a great Roman means being like this – I can’t. I’ll go with Mistress Aurelia and the captain. You might conquer us. You likely will. But you’re going to have to fight for it. Every step of the way. Because the Caledonians will never kneel, and neither will we.”

Silence, again. Impossible, thunderous, twisting, rising. Gold twisted around to look back at Emma, eyes almost reptilian with hate. “And you’re going to take this? Never seeing your parents again? Never laying eyes on Rome again? Damned as a traitor?”

Emma hesitated too, but her answer was the same. “Rome left me a long time ago,” she said quietly. “I’ll leave Rome now if I must.”

She could see the calculations whirring behind Gold’s eyes. It was still possible that he could make something of this for himself – if the story was put about that Emma Aurelia herself had defected to the rebels, it would severely undermine David’s authority, force him out of his governorship in disgrace, and allow Gold to take over effective control of the Caledonian campaign. Emma hated the thought of doing that to her father, but at the same time, she had been becoming more and more a Briton for years, slipping farther and farther away from the orbit of the Eternal City, the place and the power that had broken her heart. If such it was, so be it.

“Very well.” Gold pushed her arm away, disentangling himself, and clapped his hands. “Guards. Take these three traitors to the city gate, give them horses, and put them out on the moors. Give them three days’ head start, then go after them. If they’re not across the Antonine Wall and in Caledonia by that time, kill them. The same goes if they are ever seen in Britannia again.”

The legionnaires jerked their heads in acknowledgement. Hauled Emma, shaking with cold, out of the water, grabbed Killian and Henri by the wrists, and quick-marched them out of the villa, through the muddy streets. Put them up on horses and hauled chains, creaking, to swing the gate open.

Emma sat straight. She had turned numb, and not merely from the water, remembering how they had left Rome before – like this, with no apparent future, nothing but the open road before them. But now she had Killian with her, and Henri, and a world remade. She knew they would reach the Caledonian wilds and join the tribes there, with Roland and all the others she had worked for, forging bonds and trust. They would warn them of the coming invasion, and no matter what, no matter the storms or the thunder or the death that the Roman war machine could rain down on them, they would fight. Would fight, and they would win. Caledonia would remain free. Gold would be defeated. And so, thus, in what little or what great time they should have left, they would live.

She spurred up alongside Killian. Let the horse have its head. And did not once, even as she heard the city bells begin to sound behind them, heard the great thump of the gate closing forever, look back.


	8. Epilogue

The lights of the procession wound back and forth over the dark hills like earthbound stars – torches, beacons, candles, even twigs, anything that could be struck to hold a spark and illuminate the southward march. The cortege, draped in summer flowers, went at the head, escorted by an honor guard of Hibernian warlords with faces painted black, mounted on shaggy highland ponies with goldwork bridles. Next came the Picti, similarly clad in mourning, and the druids, who stopped at every glade to mark the trees with ogham lettering, the tale of the great lady who passed this way for the last time. Members of countless Celtic tribes made up the bulk of the column, and Caledonians with skinpipes skirled a high, haunting lament that blew on the breeze and echoed out over the desolate moors. Kittiwakes and ravens wheeled high overhead, nothing but black spots at their height, like Woden’s heralds, birds of the dead.

At the rear, flanking their father, rode the three new chieftainesses of the clans: Julia, Regina, and Caitriona, with their brothers, Henricus and Liam. They wore their hair long and loose, Julia and Regina’s black, Caitriona’s blonde, clad in bronze and fur and seal ivory, amber and onyx sparkling in their earrings and coronets. As the eldest, Julia would have the unenviable task of stepping into her mother’s unfillable boots, leader and mediator of the countless diverse Caledonian peoples, Lady of the Oak Grove, and Regina and Caitriona were, respectively, her war leader and diplomatic ambassador. Henricus still fought, but not as much since his injury, and young Liam, just ten, would not command his own war band for some years yet. It was the three fierce sisters who were the hope and future of the northerners.

It had been twenty years since the full-out invasion of Caledonia was repelled, since Gaius Flavius Cassianus had thrown legion after legion at them and the tribes, united under the co-chieftainship of Emma Aurelia and her husband, Killian mac Dáithí, had – at great cost – finally defeated them forever, sending Cassianus slinking in ignominy back to Rome and the Roman frontiers of Britannia never to effectively expand past Hadrian’s Wall. The Caledonians remained one of the very few peoples never to be conquered by Rome, never to kneel to the Eagle, to keep to their old ways and their old gods, to live free. Rome retained its power in the south of the island, but in the north, they left well enough alone.

And so, there had been peace. Prosperity. Time to live. The three daughters and their brother – there would have been a third son, but he died at birth, surviving only long enough to be named for his grandfather David, the former provincial governor of Britannia whom Emma had never seen again. Henricus, as he grew older, proved to be more of a scholar and an author than a soldier, and had begun the _Annals,_ the record of their family and its deeds. He would counsel his sister Julia as he had their mother, but all five of the children could not yet comprehend a world without Emma Aurelia. Nor could their father. From the time in the candlelit longhouse, four nights ago, after Killian mac Dáithí had ordered everyone out so he and his wife could spend her last moments alone together, so she could die in his arms, he had not spoken a word, wept a tear, or even seemed to breathe. He was a statue, a ghost whose spirit had not yet left its body, a shadow.

Emma’s legacy was evident in all the folk of Caledonia joining the funeral procession south, wending its slow, sorrowful way through the lowlands and moors, finally calling a halt within sight of the walls of Eboracum. The Roman citizens within might have been alarmed to see such a vast horde massing on its doorstep, and indeed they heard distant shouts of alarm, saw torches lit on the walls, the rushing of plumed helmets here and there, as the legionnaires girded against an attack. But none came. Instead the tribesmen began building a massive funeral pyre, as the druids chanted a dirge. Rome might have done its best to forget Emma Aurelia, to damn her memory, to shun any mention of the praetor’s daughter who ran to Caledonia, married a Celtic slave, and ruled as queen, defeating Cassianus’ invasion, Boudicca reborn – but now, at the end, they would not permit it to do so. By all the gods of stone and wode, hedge and heath, the Tuatha Dé and the imperial pantheon alike, Rome would remember.

Killian and his sons and daughters stood on the hilltop, hair and mantles whipping in the wind, as the preparations were made. Caitriona, her father’s favorite, stood close, a hand under his elbow, and when it was time, she escorted him down through the crowds of silent clansmen to the cortege, where Emma’s body lay in its shroud. They each stooped to kiss her forehead through the cloth, Liam trying to choke back his sobs and remain as icily composed as his older siblings. But when it came time, last of all, for Killian to make his final farewell, he did not. He remained bent over, gazing at the shroud, as the world held its breath. Then he looked up and said, the first words he had spoken since Emma’s death, “Rule well.”

“Papa?” Julia’s voice quavered. She sounded not like the young queen, but like the young girl. “What do you mean?”

Killian managed a smile. Or at least, his lips turned up, but it did nothing to touch the abyss of grief in his eyes. “I’ve had so long. Far more than I bargained for. I’ve had you, and Gina, and Cait, and Henri and Liam. Even little David, for those few moments. I’ve had a life, a legacy, a future. It’s time for you now. Let me go with her. Don’t send her where I cannot follow.”

Julia opened her mouth, doubtless to plead with him to change his mind, then stopped. They remained staring at each other for another eternal moment. Then, barely, she nodded.

Killian stepped close and kissed her on the forehead, then Regina and Caitriona in turn. Henricus’ jaw was stiff with restrained tears, and little Liam was sobbing openly. But for all his youth, he too was a man of the Celts, and he knew the old ways. As Killian knelt down and hugged him hard, as if he could not yet bear to step away, Liam gulped in a shaking breath and whispered, “Go, Papa. Go. Mama is waiting for you.”

“You will see us in the stars,” Killian whispered. “Sail well.”

Liam, eyes overflowing with tears, nodded. Then he let go of his father, and the children stepped away. The dark circle of tribesmen were as silent as the standing stones, waiting, waiting.

Killian lifted Emma’s body into his arms, and stepped up onto the pyre. The druids called out in deep, slow song, the pipes wailed, and the torches were struck.

Killian set Emma gently among the kindling, then accepted the amphorae of oil that were handed up, drenching them both, as the tribesmen soaked the rest of the thatches of straw and the fagots of wood with it. Took off his hook and cast it down, so he could pull her close one last time with both arms, as he had long ago in Rome when they were young and he was whole, without the damage, without the weapon, without the darkness. The praetor’s daughter and the slave, and their love that had changed the course of history.

Julia was crying as hard as Liam now, and Regina and Caitriona stood to either side with tears silently spilling down their faces. But they did not move or speak. They stood and waited and watched as the torches were moved forward in slow procession, then set to the bundles of kindling, and the pyre all at once flamed alight.

Higher and higher the blaze burned, licking at the summer sky, smoke rising for miles into the clear night. Julia could see her parents in each other’s arms at the heart of it, Killian’s eyes closed, a faint smile seemingly lingering on his lips, until the heat grew too intense and embers fell like stars, fountaining red and gold and orange and white, small explosions of sparks as the pyre collapsed inward. She knew everyone on the walls of Eboracum was watching as well, that questions would be asked, and tales passed. And word would make it back to Rome, and all who had the ears to listen, that Emma Aurelia was well remembered.

The pyre burned for a long time. Killian had never made a sound, no scream, no murmur, nothing to herald when he let go, and their spirits fled together toward the stars. Far away, impossibly, Julia thought she heard her mother laughing.

She dashed the tears from her eyes with the heel of her hand, and stood straighter. Kept the vigil all night, as the tribesmen periodically stoked and stirred the pyre to be sure everything was burned, that flesh and bone and blood had become nothing but ash. Perhaps a mighty oak tree would grow here to mark their place, for the druids would plant one in the soil. Standing in sight of Eboracum, of the world Emma Aurelia had been born in, but in the earth of the world she had chosen. Never forget.

Never forget.

At last, the horned moon set in golden clouds, and dawn began to break rosy against the pale-blue eastern sky; it came early in the long summer days, only four hours past midnight. The tribesmen, their duty discharged, their honor satisfied, began to disperse. Birds were singing, distant across the moors. Even in the face of death, life went on.

Julia lifted her face to the first beam of morning sun, and drew a long breath. It tasted of smoke and salt and grief, and it came hard into her chest, still aching and sore as if her heart had been ripped out. But she knew it had not, for she felt it beating. Felt time rushing forward. Felt the world beginning anew.

She raised a hand to her sisters, beckoning them. Her servant brought her horse, and she mounted up. And then she found the strength – or perhaps it had been there all along – turned her back on the pyre and the past, made her farewells, found her peace, and rode away.


End file.
